Mercy
by autumnrose2010
Summary: Sequel to 'Ahuvati.' Living in the Millennial Kingdom with her friends Judd, Vicki, and the others, Mercy Hassid is happy, until the shocking death of a friend turns her world upside down.
1. Curious

"Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad." Mercy Hassid kissed each of her parents on the cheek as she prepared to leave the house.

"You will be home in time for dinner, won't you?" Annie asked her daughter.

"Of course I will." Stepping outside, Mercy entered a world that was vastly different from the one in which her parents had grown up. Formerly wild animals like lions and bears roamed the streets freely, bothering no one. All former carnivores were now vegetarians.

"Mercy!" Mercy turned to see her friends Judd, Vicki, Lionel, and Ryan walking along. All four were more than ten years older than Mercy, but since everyone aged much more slowly now, they all appeared to be the same age. Judd and Vicki were married, and Vicki was six months pregnant with the couple's first child.

"Hey guys!" Mercy called to them. "How's it going?"

"Great!" Vicki smiled. "I think this baby will be either a football player or a ballerina. It kept me up all night long with its kicking!"

Mercy placed her hand on the other girl's belly, and sure enough, she felt a strong flutter almost right away. "Wow, he or she sure is active!"

"He," said Judd.

"She," argued Vicki.

Mercy laughed. "Maybe it's twins!"

"The midwife doesn't think so," Vicki told her. Gone were the maternity floors, obstetricians, and ultrasounds of the past, to be replaced by the midwives of the Biblical-era Israelites. As miscarriages, stillbirths, and other pregnancy complications no longer happened, they were considered to be sufficient.

"Well, here I am." The group had reached the sprawling campus of COT, which was the combination nursery/Bible school run by Cameron and Chloe Williams. Basic skills such as reading, writing, and math were also taught, but the emphasis was on Biblical history and the application of the scriptures to one's daily life.

Mercy entered the main building of the complex to find one of her co-workers, Cendrillon Jospin, surrounded by a group of elementary school age children. As Cendrillon was very popular with children of that age group, Mercy wasn't surprised at all. Cameron and Chloe's son, Kenny Bruce, was writing the day's lesson on the blackboard while Ekaterina Risto plugged the projector in.

"How's it going, guys?" Mercy asked as she walked up to the group of children.

"Great!" Seven-year-old Timothy grinned, revealing the gap in his upper gum. "Cindy's been telling us about Lilith."

Kenny turned from the blackboard, his eyes growing wide with surprise as Ekaterina's mouth fell open.

"She was Adam's first wife," added six-year-old Annika.

"That _isn't_ part of the curriculum," said Kenny.

"She's mentioned in the book of Sirach," Cendrillon told him. "Jeremiah's son told King Nebuchadnezzar about her."

Kenny sighed. "I've never heard of that, but it isn't part of canon scripture. From now on, please limit your stories to the inspired Word of God."

"All right." Cendrillon looked sad.

"Hey, Mercy!" Mercy felt an eager tug on her finger and looked down into the big brown eyes of five-year-old Hassan. "Can you help me with my alphabet now?"

"Sure!" Class didn't start for another fifteen minutes or so. Mercy took the little boy by the hand and led him back to his desk, where he'd already opened his textbook. He sat in the child-sized chair while Mercy took the adult one. "This is a _beit,_ and this is a _gimel."_ The alphabet taught was that of the universal language of the Millennial Kingdom, which was Hebrew.

Hassan pointed. "What are those funny little marks on top of them?"

"Since there are no vowels, only consonants, they help with pronunciation until you learn to recognize individual words," Mercy explained. "You also read from right to left. In my mother's native language, English, it's just the opposite. You read from left to right."

"Where's your mother from?" asked Hassan.

"Before the rapture, it was called Canada, and during the Tribulation, it was part of the United North American States."

"And what about your father?"

"He was born in what used to be called Tel Aviv. That was before all the cities reverted back to their Biblical names. It's about 73 kilometers from Jerusalem."

Hassan beamed. "Where the Temple and the sacrifices are!"

"Exactly!"

Although the two girls lived in opposite directions from COT, Mercy fell into step beside Cendrillon after the school day had ended. "So what happened to Lilith?" she asked.

"She abandoned Adam because he tried to make her submit to him."

"But what about Eve?"

"There are two different creation accounts in Genesis," Cendrillon explained. "The first says that the male and female were created at the same time, from the dust of the earth. The second is the one we were all taught to believe, that man was created first and woman later on, from his rib. The first story is that of Adam and Lilith. It's also in the Talmud, the oral tradition, but Kenny would have had a cow if I'd brought _that_ up."

"But don't you like Kenny?'

"Sure, he's a nice guy. Just a little rigid sometimes."

"How did you know about Adam and Lilith?"

Cendrillon glanced around to make sure no one else was within earshot, then leaned toward Mercy and lowered her voice. "My cousins in France deal in contraband literature."

Mercy gasped. "But that's so dangerous! If they get caught, they'll be brought before the judges!"

"What have the judges ever done to anyone? The worst that would happen is they'd be shut down, but then they'd just find a way to come back a few months later. Hey, why don't you come over one evening? There's lots of stuff I could show you, if you want to see it."


	2. Wistful

"Have you ever heard of the Kabbalah?" Cendrillon asked Mercy. The girls were in Cendrillon's bedroom, sitting on her bed.

"I don't think so. What is it?"

"It's part of their own religious tradition, and I'll bet they don't know anything at all about it." Cendrillon tilted her head toward Jerusalem, where Jesus ruled the world with King David as his regent and, beneath them, a multi-level hierarchy of judges and counselors. Then she reached beneath her bed and pulled out a book with funny-looking symbols on the front and opened it.

"Listen to this: 'The purpose of life is to enable the Divine Spark within each of us to be released from the physical body and re-establish its connection with God.' That means everyone has a piece of God inside them."

Mercy frowned. _"All_ of us? But we're all born with a sinful nature, separated from God until we accept Jesus."

But Cendrillon was shaking her head. "No, no, no. Saint Augustine came up with all that in the fourth century, a long time after the Bible was already written."

"Then what did Jesus die to save us from?"

"Nothing. He wasn't even the founder of Christianity. The Apostle Paul was."

Mercy gasped. "You'd better be careful saying things like that!" The alarm in her voice made it shrill, and a moment later, there was a knock on the door.

"Is everything all right in there, girls?" asked Cendrillon's mother.

"Everything's fine, Mom. We're just studying the Bible," Cendrillon replied.

Mercy's eyes grew wide. "You just lied to your mother!" she whispered fiercely.

"No, I didn't." Cendrillon hastily shoved the Kabbalist book back under her bed and reached for her King James version Bible on the shelf.

* * *

"Have you ever heard of the Kabbalah, Dad?" Mercy asked her father as the family was eating its evening meal of various vegetables drenched in butter.

David just stared at his daughter for a moment. "Where did you hear that word?"

"Cendrillon."

David frowned. "You've been spending quite a bit of time with her lately, haven't you?"

"She's one of the smartest people I know, Dad."

"You don't need to concern yourself with the Kabbalah, Mercy. Just keep your eyes on Jesus and keep studying the Bible, and you'll be fine."

"All right, Dad."

After the family had finished eating and the dishes had been cleaned and put away, Annie wandered into the living room to find her husband sitting on the sofa, a perturbed look on his face.

"What's wrong, dear?" she asked.

"I _have_ heard of the Kabbalah." David brought his elbows forward to his knees as he heaved a deep sigh. "My grandfather was born in Poland. I used to listen when he'd talk to my father about the ultra orthodox with their curled side locks and quaint, studious ways. They were my own ancestors, Annie. Hence our last name." He gave a bleak smile.

"What is it, David?"

"Something we've been warned to stay away from. 'The secret things belong to the Lord our God.' Deuteronomy 29:29."

"So is it really dangerous?"

"Very much so. I think we'd better have a talk with her about the amount of time she's been spending with Cendrillon."

"We can't forbid her to have friends, David. She obviously enjoys the company of this girl, and surely she's a Christian. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about her, how enthusiastic she is about her work at COT, how much the children love her."

David sighed. "I just can't help but worry about the situation. Even though she's well into her nineties and has the body of a teenager, to me, she'll always be my little girl."

* * *

Judd and Vicki were on their way to pick berries when they met up with Nada Amir and Chaya Stein. Chaya smiled, but Nada did a double take when she saw Vicki's swollen belly.

"Hi, girls." Judd hid his extreme awkwardness beneath a cool exterior.

"Hi!" said Chaya. "Congratulations, Vicki! When are you due?"

"Three more months," Vicki told her. "Are you all right, Nada?"

"Oh, uh, sure. I'm fine." Nada forced a smile. "Sometimes I just can't help but imagine what my life might have been like if I'd kept my natural body."

"It's the baby, isn't it?" asked Vicki. Nada nodded.

"Just look at it this way," Chaya told her friend. "You'll never get sick again, and you'll never get old or die. Having a glorified body has great perks." She and her mother both had glorified bodies, while her father still had his natural one. If Mitchell Stein ever suffered unrequited urges or desires, he never spoke of them.

"I'm sure it does." Vicki put her hand on her rounded belly. You're both welcome to visit us as often as you want after our baby's born."

"Thanks," said Chaya.

"Nice to see you again, but we'd better get going," said Nada. Both girls' fathers were priests in the Temple, and it was likely they were running some errand for them.

"Take care," said Vicki. She waited until both girls were out of earshot to address her husband. "Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if she hadn't died and you'd married her."

Judd smiled and patted her belly. "If that had been God's will, it would have happened. But it wasn't, so it didn't."

Vicki nodded, but at the same time, she couldn't help feeling just a little sorry for Nada.


	3. Freak

Cendrillon sat in the grass underneath a beach umbrella. As she tanned easily and hated the racoon look, she'd abandoned the dark shades in favor of a visor.

"What are you doing?" asked Mercy, who tanned even more easily than her friend and so tried to really limit the amount of time she spent outside.

"Just thinking about how it used to be," Cendrillon replied. "When my Mom was a teenager in Paris, before she met my Dad and then the Rapture happened and they became believers, she used to like to lie out in the sun. Girls wore bikinis back then, two-piece outfits with just a bra and panties. They'd be considered terribly indecent these days, but when my Mom was a teenager, they were popular." She moved over to make room for Mercy under the umbrella.

Mercy chuckled. "Hard to believe people actually had to _work_ on getting tans, isn't it?"

"That's not all," Cendrillon continued. "My Dad told me when he was a boy, he used to look up at the stars back when there used to be night. He said there was a custom of wishing upon the first star you could see. There was even a saying for it. 'Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight."

"I've seen pictures online," said Mercy. "If you google 'starry night', there are old photos from before the Glorious Appearing."

"They're still out there, beyond the canopy," said Cendrillon. "A friend and I have been building a rocket, one powerful enough to break through the canopy to the other side."

"Sergei?" Mercy had seen the two of them together a lot on the COT campus. She knew the young Russian didn't work at COT, that he belonged to another group that had been engaged in scientific experiments and competitions with some of the COT employees recently, but she knew next to nothing about it.

Cendrillon nodded. "There used to be a Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both countries wanted to be first to send a man up into space. The Soviet Union won with Yuri Gagarin, but then the United States put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon a few years later. Sergei and I want to bring space exploration back, not the competitive part but cooperatively, working together to found out what, or even who, might be out there."

"But that's so dangerous! And besides, you know what Cameron would say."

"Sure, that God didn't intend for us to go beyond the world we inhabit, but this world can't be _all_ there is."

"But what's wrong with this world? We have as much delicious food to eat as we want, nice homes to live in, the weather's always perfect, we never get sick, there's no crime - what more could we ask for?"

"Maybe too much perfection isn't such a good thing, after all. Don't you miss having goals, ambitions, things to strive for?"

"But the only thing that really matters is where you stand with Christ. We all still have to make a choice, just like in the old days."

Cendrillon rolled her eyes. "God gave us brains, Mercy. Don't you think He expects us to use them?"

Mercy wasn't sure how to answer.

* * *

As it would have been impossible to fit one hundred candles on a cake, Cendrillon's bore a numeral one candle and two numeral zero candles instead. Cerise Jospin stood beside the cake, talking and laughing and handing slices of cake on paper plates and paper cups full of red punch to her family and friends. Mercy saw a slight young man standing to himself in a corner of the yard, looking on.

Everyone was always especially kind to Matthew Durham because they felt terribly sorry for him, and with good reason - his biological father had been the Antichrist himself, Nicolae Carpathia. Even after almost ninety-three years, the young man still hadn't been able to shake off the stigma.

"Don't you want some cake?" Mercy offered him a plate.

"No, thanks. Maybe later." Matthew shuffled his feet as he looked at the ground. "It must be nice to have a birthday."

"You just eat cake and open presents. It's not that big of a deal."

"I'm enough of a freak as it is. I have three grandfathers, you know."

"That's not possible."

"It's true. My father was conceived using a hybrid sperm, a combination of the sperm of Sorin Carpathia and his lover, Baduna Marius. My father was a freak, so that makes me a freak, too."

"But you're _glorified!"_

Matthew shrugged. "So? That just means I'm a glorified freak, is all. At least I can't pass on my freakishness."

"You shouldn't feel that way about yourself, Matthew. You can't help who your father was."

He sighed. "I know."

She wished she could think of something to say that would make him feel better.

* * *

"I came to say goodbye," Cendrillon told Mercy. "I leave tonight."

"Are you sure you really want to go through with this?" asked Mercy. "It's not the same as when you went out to sea with Captain Mueller, you know. You'll be going where nobody's gone since before the Rapture."

"It's not just that I want to. I really feel like I _have_ to," Cendrillon replied.

As Mercy hugged her friend goodbye, she got the awful feeling she'd never see her again.


	4. Gone

Ten days passed after Cendrillon's departure. Then fourteen. Mercy grew increasingly concerned about her friend. Had she met up with some unanticipated complication?

She arrived at COT to find her co-workers gathered in the conference room, all staring at one another in stunned disbelief.

"What happened?" she asked.

"It's Cendrillon!" cried Ekaterina Risto. "She's gone!"

Mercy frowned. "I know, but she should be back by now!"

Ekaterina raced to her and shook her. "No! Don't you understand? She _died!"_

 _"What?"_ Mercy felt her knees grow weak and had to grab a chair for support. "But no one's died since the glorious appearing! There must be some mistake!"

"No mistake." It was Beth Ann Sebastian, the daughter of George and Priscilla Sebastian. "Her capsule returned to earth, but she wasn't in it. They finally found her body a long way away from it. Nobody has any idea what happened."

"So where is she now?"

"In her parents' wine cellar," Ekaterina told her. "There was nowhere else to store it until the funeral."

Mercy was numb as she went about her daily tasks. She simply couldn't wrap her brain around the fact that her friend, so full of life only days ago, now lay cold and silent in her parents' wine cellar.

Cendrillon, of all people!

She couldn't wait to tell her parents about it.

"You'll never guess what happened!" she exclaimed as she burst through the door of her home that evening. David and Annie both looked up, startled. "Cendrillon died!" Mercy continued.

Instead of looking shocked as she'd expected them too, her parents exchanged a knowing glance.

"I'm sorry that happened, but to be honest, it doesn't come as much of a surprise to us," David told his daughter. "Considering the types of things she's been into lately, i was beginning to wonder whether she was even a true believer."

"But what's wrong with going beyond the canopy?"

"She didn't die because she went beyond the canopy," said David. "She died because she never accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior."

"How do you know?"

"Tsion's sermons, Mercy."

"Are you so sure Tsion was right about everything?"

David gasped, shocked his daughter would utter such words, but Annie went to Mercy and embraced her. "I know this is hard for you, darling. I had loved ones who are now in hell, too. My own parents and brothers died right after the Rapture without ever believing, as far as I know. You just have to accept that Cendrillon made her choice and now she has to deal with the consequences. It's too late for her, but the important thing is, it's not too late yet for thousands, maybe millions. We have to focus on them while they still have time. Some of them are very close to their hundredth birthday."

"That's what you think? She's in hell now?"

Annie just looked at her with sorrowful eyes. "Mercy, you've been taught your entire life that the only way to heaven is by accepting Jesus," David told his daughter. "Your friend never made that choice, so yes, she's now in eternal torment."

Mercy went to her room and cried until no more tears would come.

* * *

The funeral was held in one of the recreation centers on the COT campus and was attended by thousands. Cendrillon's immediate family filed into the first few rows of seats, but for most of the rest, there was standing room only. Mercy saw all her friends and co-workers, as well as many people she didn't know.

Luc Jospin spoke a few words before turning the service over to Cameron. He began by praising Jesus and concluded by asking for prayers for emotional healing for himself and his wife. Nothing was said about Cendrillon's intelligence, her bravery, her indomitable spirit, or how much she would be missed. It was as if Luc wanted to simply erase all memories of his daughter's having existed at all. After handing the mike to Cameron, he joined Cerise, who was staring straight ahead, in the front row.

All was still and quiet as Cameron began to speak. He acknowledged Cendrillon's accomplishments but stressed her fatal flaw of having neglected to give her life to God. As he spoke, Mercy noticed Ekaterina standing with Bahira Ababneh. Both girls were looking her way, and neither was smiling. When the service ended, they approached her.

"We're worried about you, Mercy," Bahira began. "Have you made the transaction with Jesus?"

"Of course!" Mercy had recited the sinner's prayer with her mother at the age of eight.

"You were sincere?" Ekaterina cocked an eyebrow. "We're not going to be standing here in disbelief with you lying in a box up there in a couple of years, are we?"

Mercy shook her head. "I don't think so." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a young man standing alone, crying. Sergei. She went to him and embraced him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know you and she were really close."

"Thanks." He looked at her, and she saw the tears streaming down his face. "You're Mercy, right? She used to talk about you a lot."

"Mercy Hassid. It's nice to meet you. I only wish it could have been under better circumstances."

"Same here. Hard to believe she's really gone, isn't it?"

"Isn't it though!"

"She left behind data. Pictures and information. I have copies if you want to see."


	5. If Thy Hand Offend Thee

"From beyond the canopy?" asked Mercy.

Sergei nodded.

"Oh, yes!"

"They're at my house. We can go there now, if you want. I'll introduce you to my Uncle Vasily. My parents invited him to come stay while they're in the Philippines because they don't trust me."

"Why not? Did you ever give them any reason?"

Sergei gave a weak smile. "I never kiss and tell."

For the first time, Mercy realized that with his longish dark hair and chocolate colored eyes, the Russian was quite nice looking. She thought of Cendrillon and instantly felt guilty. While life was for the living, such thoughts at a funeral were poor form at best.

Upon reaching the Korolev home, Sergei opened the door for Mercy as a true gentleman would. Uncle Vasily, who was sitting on the sofa, looked up in surprise. He had dark hair and eyes like Sergei, but his hair was a little shorter and coarser, and thinning on the sides.

"Uncle Vasily, this is Mercy Hassid, Cendrillon's friend," said Sergei.

The older man didn't smile as he reached to shake Mercy's hand. "How did the funeral go?"

"Terrible," Sergei replied. "Cameron pretty much turned it into a sermon, a chance to proselytize."

"As well he should have," Vasily replied. "You'll turn one hundred yourself in just a couple of years. Do you really want to take the chance he's wrong?"

"I'm not afraid."

"Perhaps you should be."

"Are you a believer, then?" Mercy asked Uncle Vasily.

The Russian nodded. "It was because of the testimony of my boss, Steve Plank. It was my job to escort him to the application center to receive the mark of loyalty. I gave him the chance to make a run for it, but he refused. He said he was tired of running and hiding and it was time to take a stand for his faith, even though he knew it would cost him his life.

I'd never met anyone as brave as he was, and I knew he had something precious I could never have, because by the time I learned the truth, I'd already taken the mark, so it was too late. I thought about it and decided the only thing I could do was remove the hand with the mark on it."

Mercy gasped. "Don't tell me you cut off your own hand!"

Uncle Vasily nodded. "Some resistance members broke into my quarters and found me lying on the floor, near death. Later they told me there was blood all over the place. I don't remember at all. Anyway, they took me back to their hideout and nursed me back to health. I told them I wanted to become a Christian so I could join Steve in heaven, so one of them led me in the sinner's prayer. I can't tell you what a relief that was."

"But to have to cut off your own hand!"

"I have it back now." He held up both hands to demonstrate. "It was restored to me at the Glorious Appearing."

"That's good. So are you and Steve back in touch?"

"We have been for ninety-three years now. I met up with him again right after the Glorious Appearing. He has his original face back now. We were ecstatic to see each other again. I just wish I could get my nephew here to see the light. It would be such a simple thing, and it would mean the difference between life and death."

Sergei jerked his head in the direction of his room. "Come on."

Mercy followed him down the hallway to the door at the end. After they entered the room, Sergei closed it behind them.

Mercy frowned. "But shouldn't we leave it open because of Uncle Vasily?"

"Why, so he can make sure we don't fornicate?"

Sergei's blunt frankness made her burst out giggling.

"He doesn't care. He isn't really into all those ridiculous rules. He just thinks of it as what he had to do to make it here. Besides, I'm a perfect gentleman. I'd never do anything you didn't want me to." He grinned.

She remembered what he'd said about not kissing and telling and suddenly _had_ to know. "Did you and Cendrillon - "

Sergei was shaking his head. "I would have loved to, but I couldn't get up the nerve to ask her." A sob caught in his throat. "And now I'll never have the chance."

Mercy had to resist the urge to give him a hug. "So what do you have?" She wanted to take his mind off it.

"Oh, yeah! Lots of great stuff." He fetched a folder from his desk and opened it. "Here's a closeup of the surface of the moon."

"Wow!" Mercy breathed. The rocky terrain pockmarked by crater impacts was just so totally foreign to her. "And men actually walked here!"

"Two Americans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, in 1969. If you've ever seen footage, it looks more like they're bouncing than walking, since the gravitational force is so much lighter there. Here's Mars, and here's Venus. They were sending unmanned probes to different planets, making so much progress, and then the Rapture happened." He looked so sad.

"Can't you get these published?"

"We plan to do exactly that."

"We?"

"The Outer Light. In the beginning it was just me and Cendrillon, but now there are a few of us. We'd love to have you if you'd like to join us."


	6. Vicki Gives Birth

Cendrillon floated before a blue background, more of a matrix really, except that it seemed to be extra dimensional, rows of data interspersed with black spaces flowing outward in all directions. Cendrillon herself was almost transparent, an outline of a body with pieces of the background showing through, and her lips were moving, forming words. "Help me!"

Mercy heard the words in her mind rather than audibly, and she knew what was left of her friend was trapped in some spatial anomaly, unable to escape. She saw no flames, none of the imagery she'd always associated with hell, but she knew Cendrillon was frightened and helpless. Mercy stretched her arm out in Cendrillon's direction but encountered an invisible solid surface.

She awakened with her forehead covered with beads of sweat.

At the table, David and Annie were enjoying light cakes with honey and figs. They looked up as their daughter entered the room.

"I saw Cendrillon," she told them. "She's trapped. She needs help."

David shook his head. "Cendrillon's beyond anyone's help. All she has to look forward to is the Great White Throne judgement."

"I don't think it's too late for her." Mercy bit into a cake.

Annie placed a caring hand on her daughter's arm. "I know you miss your friend, sweetheart. I'll keep praying God will bring peace to your heart."

"Peace that passes understanding," David added.

After breakfast, Annie decided to pay a visit to Luc and Cerise Jospin. She hadn't seen them since the funeral and hoped she could somehow bring comfort to them, perhaps by sharing memories of Cendrillon.

On the way, she passed a building in the process of construction. 'Coming soon: Phelps Funeral Home and Mortuary' announced a sign in front. Behind the incomplete structure was a cemetery which already contained several hastily placed markers.

At the Jospins, a worn-looking Cerise greeted and embraced her.

"I just wanted to check on you and your husband and see how you were doing," Mercy told her.

"The Lord's grace is seeing us through," Cerise replied. "You were one of her closest friends. Perhaps you know about a recent discovery which has brought back our grief afresh. In Cendrillon's bedroom, we found several heretical books she'd kept hidden from us. We burned them right away and begged God's forgiveness for their presence in our home."

"It wasn't your fault if you didn't even know about them," Mercy pointed out.

"Even so, we feel fortunate a plague wasn't visited upon us, as often happened in days of old when one's home harbored inequity."

Mercy didn't know how to respond.

* * *

Vicki was relaxing at home when she felt her first contraction. "I think it's time to fetch the midwife, hon," she said to Judd, who was organizing his praise and worship CD's.

"Really?" Judd's eyes widened as he jumped to his feet. Vicki nodded, and he was out the front door like a bolt of lightening.

Vicki rested her hand on her swollen belly, feeling it tighten and relax with a sense of bemusement. It was completely painless, so she felt no fear, only joyful anticipation.

The midwife arrived and told her to get into bed, where she lay waiting patiently. Although the contractions intensified, they never became painful, and after many hours, the midwife examined her and told her it was time to push. Vicki pushed several times with all her might. At last she felt the baby slide from her body, and a moment later, she heard its healthy wail.

"It's a girl!" the midwife exclaimed. "Congratulations!"

"I hope you're not disappointed," Vicki said to Judd.

"Of course not!" Judd grinned. "She's beautiful!"

The midwife cleaned the newborn, then diapered and dressed her, wrapped her in a blanket, and handed her to her mother. Vicki looked down into the tiny, pink face with wonder as Judd looked on at her side.

"What shall we call her?" he asked.

"I like Selah," Vicki replied. "It's from the Psalms."

"It's a lovely name," Judd agreed.

Jeanni , Mark, and Marcie soon came to visit their new niece. Raptured as children, none of them would ever become parents themselves, and they were sure to lavish much love and attention on little Selah.

* * *

"Mind if I walk with you?" Mercy turned to see Qasim Marid smiling at her. "We're going in the same direction anyway."

"Sure, that's fine." Although the young man with the dark, exotic good looks had flirted with her occasionally, she knew it was really Ekaterina Risto he had eyes for.

"Exciting news," Qasim announced. "I'm going to France to infiltrate The Other Light and gather information to take back to Raymie and his group!"

"Ignace and Lothair's group." Mercy remembered hearing Cendrillon talk about her cousins and had seen them at the funeral, talking to Kenny.

"Yes! If we can find out what they're really up to, we can stop them in their tracks!"

Mercy had heard the nightclubs were really just a front for more nefarious activities. She didn't know what it was all about and didn't want to know. Sergei had never mentioned the group, and she didn't think he was involved with them. She hoped not, anyway.

"Well, be careful!" she cautioned Qasim.

He laughed. "What would ever happen to me?"


	7. Experimentation

"There he is." Ignace nodded toward Matthew, who was walking along the road. "Let's get him!" He parked his jeep by the side of the road, and he and Lothair got out.

"Matthew!" called Ignace.

Matthew's head whipped around to stare at the two men. "I remember seeing you at Cendrillon's funeral."

"I'm her cousin Ignace, and this is my brother Lothair." Ignace smiled and held out his hand, which Matthew shook. "It's nice to meet you. Where are you headed on this fine day?"

"My mother sent me to the store for a few things."

"Hop in our jeep. We'll get you there faster."

"It's only around the corner."

"That's all right. We've been wanting to talk to you anyway."

"What about?"

Ignace jerked his head in the direction of the jeep. "Let's talk while we walk." The three young men headed for the jeep, and when they reached it, Ignace returned to his spot behind the wheel and started the engine. They headed in the direction of the market but whizzed right past it.

"Hey, I needed a few things - " Matthew protested.

"We need your help with something first," Ignace told him. "It won't take that long, and it would make a huge contribution to scientific advancement. Don't you like science?"

"I don't know that much about it. I've never been to school."

"To me it's fascinating," offered Lothair. Soon they reached TOL's lab, Ignace parked the jeep, and they entered. The Jospin brothers led Matthew into a long room that was all white and lined with cabinets on each wall.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"It's really very simple." Ignace opened one of the cabinets and retrieved a small test tube. "Fill this with saliva."

Matthew looked surprised but did as he was told, then handed the test tube back to Ignace.

"Thank you.' Ignace placed the test tube in a holder.

"Can I go now?' asked Matthew.

"Not yet," Ignace told him. "We need to run a few more tests on you first. We've arranged a luxury suite for you to stay in. It has a king size bed, a snack bar, and a wide assortment of movies and games right at your fingertips."

"But what about my Mom?' asked Matthew.

"She's been contacted and has agreed to our experimentation," Lothair replied as he took Matthew's arm and led him toward the hall.

* * *

Sometime later, Lothair entered the lab to find his brother bent over a microscope, brows furrowed in concentration.

"What's up?" he asked.

"This is remarkable!" Ignace exclaimed. "His cells contain full activation of the Sox2, Oct4, Klf4, and c-Myc transcription factors, and the telomeres at the end of his chromosomes stay the same length no matter how many divisions they go through."

"So he's immortal because his cells are immortal."

"Exactly."

"So a zygote formed from one of his gametes combined with that of a natural female would be expected to become an individual who would be, if not completely immortal, pretty darn close. Capable of living well past the age of one hundred, anyway."

"Yes!" Ecstatic, the brothers high fived one another.

* * *

Matthew, who was naked from the waist down, stood before a large bowl, its rim pressing into his upper thighs.

"You're going to enjoy this," Lothair told him. "I'm going to project some photographs onto the wall in front of you. All you have to do is look at them and do whatever you feel like doing. If you want to touch yourself, go right ahead."

Lothair left the room, switching off the light as he went, and a moment later, the first image appeared on the wall. Matthew gazed at it, intrigued. He'd never seen a naked woman before, and the difference between her body and his own fascinated him. Her breasts were soft cushions of flesh, their nipples erect. Her hips formed sharp curves in contrast to her flat stomach, and there was a triangle of hair in the area where her legs parted from her torso.

Matthew had just gotten a good look at the photograph when it was replaced with another, in which the same woman was lying prone and had parted her legs to reveal the folds of skin between them, which she fingered while licking her lips. In the photographs that followed, the woman was shown performing acts with others, both men and women, that Matthew had never even fathomed.

He couldn't help but wonder what the purpose of all this was. Was it some kind of anatomy lesson, or meant to train him in the acts presented? He sincerely hoped not, as they repulsed him.

After awhile, he became bored and yawned. Having tired of the material presented so far, he desperately wished to leave, but eventually a young woman appeared at his side. He jumped, startled, as he hadn't heard her enter the room. He noticed that she was very scantily dressed.

"Would you like for me to touch you?"

He felt her hot breath on his cheek and shrugged. "I guess so."

She began to massage him. The sensation was mildly pleasurable, but no more so than a back rub would have been.

After a few minutes, she gave up, frustrated. Matthew watched her stomp out of the room, wondering how he'd angered her.


	8. Plan C

Ignace and Lothair looked up as Nicolette entered the room. "Any luck?" asked Ignace.

Nicolette grimaced. "Not a chance! I couldn't even achieve an erection, never mind an ejaculation. I'm pretty sure there's nothing wrong with me, so there must be something wrong with him."

"I'm just relieved you're still alive," Lothair told her. "You know what the outcome of the sole attempt by a natural man to impregnate a glorified woman was."

Nicolette snorted. "Why do you think I asked for his consent first? I'm not an idiot!"

"It seems to have been for naught anyway." Ignace sighed. "We'll have to move on to Plan B."

"Which is?"

"The surgical extraction of sperm."

Nicolette grimaced. "Gross!"

"It's really a very minor procedure. It only takes a few minutes and can be performed under a local anesthetic."

"As long as I don't have to watch."

Both men laughed.

* * *

Matthew lay back on the examination table with his feet in stirrups, as he'd been instructed.

"Hello, Matthew," Ignace greeted him as he entered the room. "How do you feel? Are you comfortable?"

"I'm all right." Matthew stared at the ceiling, hoping the procedure would be over with soon.

"Glad to hear it." Matthew heard the clatter of laboratory equipment being handled. "Just a little pinch, now." Ignace moved into position between Matthew's legs, and a moment later, the young man grimaced as his skin was pricked.

"Just a little pressure now." The needle was inserted, and a small amount of fluid was collected. "There now, all finished." Ignace smiled. "You did great, Matthew."

Lothair helped the youth to his feet, and he dressed and returned to his quarters. Meanwhile, Ignace hummed the opening bars of 'Devil Inside' by INXS under his breath as he prepared the sample for viewing underneath the microscope.

* * *

"I don't believe it." Ignace looked up at Lothair and Nicolette, who stood right behind him. "His testicles contain no sperm at all, only a small amount of prostatic fluid."

Lothair snorted. "I could have told you it was a waste of time, but do you ever listen to me?"

Ignace ignored his brother. "Luckily, we have a Plan C."

Lothair's eyes widened. "There is?"

"I still have Matthew's cheek cells. I can simply extract the DNA from one of them and insert it into the emptied nucleus of an ova, which our own lovely Nicolette has agreed to provide."

"But that would create a clone of Matthew, not a natural/glorified hybrid," Lothair interrupted.

"Let me finish. About thirty-four years before the Rapture, Project People's Victory perfected the technique of creating a hybrid sperm by removing eleven of its chromosomes and replacing them with chromosomes from the sperm of an unrelated man. I've adapted their procedure so it can be used to remove eleven chromosomes from an ova and replace them with eleven from a somatic cell of another person. Therefore, the resulting embryo will essentially be the child of the ova donor and the somatic cell donor."

Lothair gave a sharp laugh and clapped his brother on the shoulder. "You're a genius!"

"I just keep working at a problem until I solve it," Ignace replied modestly.

Lothair turned to Nicolette. "And I suppose you'll have the honor of carrying the first natural/glorified hybrid to term and giving birth to him?"

"Of course I will. He'll be my son," she replied.

* * *

"Thank you very much for your cooperation," Ignace said to Matthew as he dropped the young man off at his home. "You've helped us more than you'll ever know."

Hattie saw her son arrive and came running out of the house to embrace him. "Matthew! Where on earth have you been? I've been so worried about you!" She knew that, in his glorified body, he couldn't have been seriously harmed in any physical way, but she had no idea what kind of emotional duress he may have been subjected to.

"They told me you knew and had agreed to it," Matthew replied.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Hattie exclaimed.

"So they didn't tell you, then."

"Who's 'they'?"

"A couple of guys with funny sounding names. They took me to a lab and said they had to run some tests on me. They said I'd be making an important contribution to science."

"What kind of tests?"

"Well, first they told me to spit into a test tube, and then they did - some other stuff." Somehow he found himself unable to tell his mother the rest.

Hattie's eyes narrowed. "What other stuff?"

"Just - stuff. I'm going to see Ryan now." Ryan Victor Tiffane Fogarty was Matthew's closest friend. A natural, he and Matthew had in common the fact that both their biological fathers were condemned and both their biological mothers were now living in the Millennial Kingdom. However, Ryan had been adopted as an infant by Tom and Josey Fogarty so had spent his early childhood in a two-parent home. At the Glorious Appearing, the Fogartys had been reunited with their two sons who'd been raptured, and Ryan had gone back to live with his mother, Cheryl.

"Did they hurt you in any way?" Hattie persisted.

"Uh, no, not really. See you later."

She watched as he began to walk to his friend's home.


	9. Cold And Heartless

"Hey, how's it goin'?" Ryan greeted his friend as Matthew walked into the house. "Haven't seen you around in a couple of days. Where you been?"

"I was helping these two guys who were doing scientific research," Matthew replied. "They wanted me to spit in a test tube, and then they did some stuff I didn't understand. They wanted me to take off all my clothes except my shirt, and then they showed me all these weird pictures."

"What kind of pictures?"

"Women without their clothes on doing all these disgusting things."

He had Ryan's full attention now. "What kinds of disgusting things?"

As Matthew began to describe them, Ryan's jaw dropped, and then he burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" asked Matthew.

Ryan only shook his head. "You glorifieds!"

"Do you understand what they were trying to do? If so, please tell me, cause I don't at all!"

"Sure sounds like they were trying to get you turned on."

"Turned on?"

"In a sexual way. I guess that's something you glorifieds just don't understand,. Man, you sure don't know what you're missing!"

"I've never felt like I was missing anything at all."

"That's because you've never been a natural, so you don't know what it's like to have the hots for someone. Just look at Raymie and Bahira. You can tell they have a thing for each other, but since they're both glorified, nothing will ever come of it. Sad."

"But why would those guys have wanted to get me turned on?"

"Maybe they were trying to find out whether it really was impossible for a glorified to get turned on. Sounds like you sure showed them, my friend."

"But why would they have been curious about that?"

"We naturals tend to be curious about things sometimes, unlike you glorifieds, who seem to just take it all in stride."

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing."

"Maybe. Maybe not. I guess it all depends." Ryan grinned. "But those guys could sure experiment on me any time they want!"

* * *

Mercy picked a handful of daisies and took them to Cendrillon's grave. As the young woman had died prior to the establishment of the mortuary and cemetery, she'd been buried on her parents' establishment. As Mercy got closer, she saw a figure was already there, and she soon realized it was Sergei.

He glanced up as she sat beside him. "I try to come here as often as I can," he told her. "I don't think her parents ever even come, and she was their own daughter."

"They're trying their best to forget she ever existed," Mercy agreed.

"Is it just me, or does that seem cold and heartless?" asked Sergei.

"I guess the way they see it, she's lost forever, so there's no point in even worrying about it."

"But I _do_ worry about it, Mercy." He propped his elbows up on his knees and gazed earnestly into her eyes. "If you love someone and they die, but a part of them still exists somewhere, you don't just stop loving them. _I_ sure wouldn't."

"Neither would I." Mercy glanced in the direction of the cemetery. "You know, hardly anybody ever goes in there, and almost _no_ glorifieds."

"I just can't figure them out," added Sergei. "They don't fall in love and marry, and they don't mourn the dead. Don't they have any feelings at all?"

"Chloe seems to really care for the children," Mercy replied after much thought. "She seems different from other glorifieds, somehow. Like she remembers what it was like to be a natural, so she can relate to us at least a little bit."

"Kenny sure pals around with Bahira and Zaki a lot, too."

"That might be 'cause Raymie's his uncle and he's really tight with them."

"Could be," Sergei agreed.

* * *

Mercy sat with her parents, listening to the Biblical patriarch Noah talk about his adventures on the ark. She looked across at Judd and Vicki holding baby Selah. Near them sat Lionel with Ryan and Darrion. Darrion's hand rested on Ryan's thigh, but he was obviously totally oblivious to anyone but Noah. Darrion looked a little sad.

Near the group sat Kenny and Kat making goo goo eyes at each other. They were surrounded by Raymie, Bahira, and Zaki, who all stared placidly ahead. Qasim was nowhere to be found, which Mercy thought was strange, as she thought he was desperate to join their clique.

Near Kenny sat Cameron and Chloe. Once husband and wife, they'd now be much better described as roommates or chums. If either of them was secretly unhappy with this arrangement, it certainly didn't show.

Mercy noticed that Luc and Cerise both looked happy. Apparently they'd already recovered from the loss of their only child.

She wondered where Sergei was.


	10. Questions

As Noah was hit with a barrage of questions, mostly from children, Mercy slipped away in search of her friend. She found him at home, alone.

"Your folks are listening to Noah, I guess." The Korolevs had recently returned from their most recent mission trip.

"I thought you were there too."

"I just came back from there. What are you doing?"

"I've been looking over some notes Cendrillon left behind. If her mission had been successful, we'd been talking about future manned missions, perhaps even setting up a colony out there at some point in the future. I want to continue her work in her memory. So how did the Noah visit go?"

"It went all right. Basically just a recap of the Bible story."

"That's what I figured. That's why I didn't go. I have more important things to do with my time."

"But weren't you just a little bit curious?"

"Of course I was, but my work always comes first with me, so if I see a chance to get something accomplished with no distractions, I grab it."

Several days later, the two met up with Elianto, who was hard at work constructing a large wooden boat-shaped object. "It's a perfect replica of Noah's ark in miniature," Elianto told his friends. "I thought the kids would find it interesting."

"I find it interesting myself!" Mercy exclaimed. "You and Sergei are both so talented!" She was examining the structure when the group was joined by another young man.

"What's goin' on?" asked Qasim.

"Isn't Elianto's ark replica awesome?" Mercy asked him.

"Sure, it's all right."

"So why weren't you there at Noah's visit?"

Qasim shrugged. "Just not my kind of thing. I'll bet Kenny and Ekaterina were there though, weren't they?"

"Yep."

"She's so pretty. Smart, too." Qasim looked a little sad.

"Aw, cheer up," said Mercy. "There's more fish in the sea."

"Yeah. It's my own fault. I run my mouth too much."

"So you've learned a lesson for next time."

Qasim only sighed and walked away.

"If he'd start thinking with his big head instead of his little one, he might actually get somewhere," Elianto remarked when he was out of earshot.

* * *

The next guest speakers at COT were Joshua and Caleb. Mercy went to listen to them to please her parents, although secretly she'd rather be doing science experiments with Sergei or construction projects with Elianto. As soon as it was possible, she made her way over to Cameron.

"Hi, Mercy," he said. "Did you enjoy today's special guests?"

"They were all right," Mercy replied. "But you know what I think would really blow the kids away? How about if you could line up some scientists like Galileo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, and Stephen Hawking? They could talk about the wonders of the universe and how it all works. Wouldn't that be at least as much proof of God's power as these miracles that happened thousands of years ago?"

Cameron frowned. "Einstein, Sagan, and Hawking aren't even here. Einstein and Sagan were Jews who never accepted Jesus as their Messiah, and Hawking was an atheist."

"Oh." Mercy couldn't help but feel incredibly sad about those great minds being gone forever.

"As for Galileo and Newton, I'll see what I can do, but what you have to realize is that we aren't trying to convince these kids of God's power. They already know He's all powerful. What we're trying to convince them of is the importance of accepting Jesus before they turn one hundred and die without Him."

"But Jesus is right here, physically, in Jerusalem. Why can't we just go talk to Him in person instead of still having to pray to Him?"

Cameron only shook his head. "The Lord works in mysterious ways, and it isn't for us to question. It's for us to believe and obey. Look, Mercy, I know you're trying to help, and I appreciate it, but it's up to King David who he decides to send, not us."

And he always makes the best decisions, doesn't he, Mercy thought to herself, remembering Elianto's comment about Qasim thinking with his little head instead of his big one.

She played the conversation over and over again in her mind as she went to find Sergei. Mrs. Korolev opened the door when she rang the bell. "Sergei's back in his room, working on his experiments." She sighed. "I only wish he showed as much interest in things that _really_ matter. Do you know he hasn't gone on a single mission trip with us?"

"To be honest, I've never been on a mission trip, either."

Sergei looked up as his friend entered his room. "As you know, Mercy, the moon has no atmosphere, and none of the planets of our solar system are habitable. Earth-like exoplanets have been discovered, but the nearest one is over ten light years away. We'd have to build a generation ship to get there."

"But why would anyone want to spend their entire life on a space ship?"

"They would be people who want to escape fate."

"You mean God's plan?"

"Whatever you want to call it. I mean people who want to be able to think for themselves and make their own decisions about things without fear of being punished for making the 'wrong' decision."

"So you think by going into space they can escape judgement. They'll still die eventually, you know. What will happen to them then?"


	11. Jealous

Sergei only sighed and shook his head. Mercy left afterwards with serious misgivings. Why did her friend feel so strongly about not wanting to accept Jesus? To her it seemed so easy - just repeat the prayer after Cameron or one of the other leaders, and presto, you're a member of the Kingdom, right?

At least, it seemed that way to her. After repeating the prayer after her mother, she'd felt nothing but relief at having been spared the horrors of hell. Or had she? The fears had returned her tenth summer. She'd talked to Cameron about it, and he'd told her she simply needed to have more faith.

She was so deeply in thought she almost collided with Qasim, who was walking in the opposite direction. "Sorry!" she said.

"That's all right." Qasim grinned. "I'm actually glad we bumped into each other. I've been meaning to ask if you'd like to have dinner with me at the Valley Bistro. They have the best veggie burgers in town!"

"You mean, like a date?"

"Of course that's what I mean! I can tell you're a natural, so you must be into that kind of thing, right?"

Mercy's eyes narrowed. "You're just using me to try to make Kat jealous, aren't you?"

"Not at all! I used to really like her, but after getting to know her better, I've come to see she's not my type at all. She's just like Kenny - if it's not something to do with the Bible, she wants no part of it. But you're different, aren't you? I can tell you are. You like to have fun like me!"

"Well, yeah, sure I do!"

"Is it a date, then?"

"I guess so!"

Mercy was excited yet anxious. She'd never been on a real date before, so she wasn't quite sure what to expect. She did know she was expected to look her very best, so she chose her nicest dress and took care in making up her face.

Makeup was a divisive issue among Believers. While some insisted it was harmless, others claimed it was vanity and therefore sinful. Mercy's parents didn't especially like her wearing it, but they'd learned long ago to choose their battles.

"Going somewhere special?" Annie asked her daughter as she walked out of the house.

"I'm meeting Qasim at the Valley Bistro," Mercy told her mother.

"Qasim?" Annie's eyebrows went up. "Well, be careful, and enjoy yourself!"

"Thanks!"

Annie turned to her husband after Mercy had left. "What do you think of our daughter going out with Qasim Marid?"

David frowned. "I don't trust him. I've heard things about him, and not all of them are good."

"What have you heard?"

"I've heard in all the years he's been working at COT, he's never led a single child to the Lord." David sighed. "Sometimes I wish true believers still had the seal of God on their foreheads, like it was during the Tribulation. Then it would be easy to tell who was really one of us and who wasn't."

"I'm sure everything will be fine," Annie replied, although she wasn't sure at all.

* * *

Mercy found Qasim waiting for her at the Bistro, dressed to the nines, of course. He jumped to his feet and came over to meet her.

"Mercy! I'm so glad you could come. I picked the nicest seats for us."

Mercy was happy to see their table had a view of the shore.

The waitress brought them glasses of water and took their orders. When she left, Qasim began to speak.

"So how would you like to go to Paris with me?" he asked.

"I thought you already went and brought the manifesto back," Mercy replied.

"I did." Qasim lifted his glass and took a sip. "This time I'm going to have some fun. There's lots of fun places in Paris, Mercy. Wouldn't you like to check them out?"

"I guess I _have_ always been kind of curious about Paris."

"Well, then, now's your chance to have your curiosity satisfied!"

Mercy thought for a minute, then grinned. "OK!"

* * *

Sergei frowned. "I don't like it. Pass me that ruler, please." He and Mercy were working on graphs to figure out how much fuel would be required to provide a rocket with enough velocity to reach Saturn's moon Titan in three years, how many supplies would be needed for such a mission, and how much space would be needed to store them.

"Why not?" asked Mercy. "Qasim's a nice guy. I trust him."

 _"I_ don't."

"Why not?"

Sergei used the ruler to draw a long line down the side of a chart. "If you ask me, that guy's just after a piece of ass."

"Why do you say that?"

"No specific reason. It's just a feeling I have."

Mercy felt one side of her mouth begin to curl upward. "I think you're jealous!" she said in a singsong voice.

Sergei dropped his pencil and stared at her. "Huh?"


	12. Paris

Mercy laughed. "It's written all over your face!"

Sergei shrugged. "Whatever. I just don't want you to get hurt, is all."

"Aw, that's sweet of you." She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He blushed as he pretended to study the chart he was working on. "But are you sure that was all you were worried about?"

He looked up. "What else would I be worried about?"

"You aren't afraid, for instance, that I might fall in love with him?"

Sergei snorted. "Oh, don't be ridiculous!"

"So, do I have your blessing to go to Paris with Qasim, then?" asked Mercy.

He sighed. "Do whatever you want, Mercy."

"Nobody would want to date a tech nerd like me, anyway," he mumbled to himself after she'd left, as he reached for his phone to call Elianto.

The weekend arrived, and Qasim, Zaki, and Bruce Barnes's daughter Wendy, who'd been raptured with her mother and two younger brothers, pulled up in front of Mercy's home in Qasim's metallic green Camero. The only way Mercy had been able to persuade her parents to let her go on the trip had been by telling them the four were joining a group of Believers in Paris for an anti-TOL rally. David and Annie had relented because Qasim and Mercy would be accompanied by two Glorifieds, whom it was assumed were incapable of sinning.

Upon their arrival at the auditorium, the young people were equipped with placards and tracts and sent out into the streets to evangelize. As Mercy marched along chanting 'Jesus Saves!' and passing out tracts to anyone who would accept them, she noticed the scowls on some of the bystanders' faces. Only to be expected when you're spreading the gospel, Cameron had told Mercy and the others, numerous times.

Near one corner a fight broke out, which soon escalated into a full-fledged riot. Qasim needed no further excuse. Grabbing Mercy by the hand, he pulled her down a street in the opposite direction, where he took her to a small, dilapidated building with graffiti all over the outside. With some trepidation, she followed him inside, where she saw Max and Igor, whom she remembered from the cookie jar incident. Igor now had genuine peach fuzz on his chin, and his arm was around a blonde with several face piercings who wore black lipstick.

Igor grinned when he saw Mercy. "Hey! This is my girlfriend, Natasha." His voice sounded deeper than it had before.

"Hi." Mercy wondered whether Natasha had been born male or female. If she did or ever had possessed male genitalia, you sure couldn't tell now. Mercy complimented Igor on his facial hair.

"Thanks," he replied. "Hormone injections."

The two sat on a dingy sofa with stuffing falling out. There was a coffee table in front of it, upon which a number of magazines had been piled. Out of curiosity, Mercy picked one up and looked at its cover. 'The Effect of Maternal Hormones on Fetal Brain Development' was the title of the main article.

"You should read that," Igor told Mercy. "It's good."

"What's it about?" asked Mercy.

"It explains how the mother's hormones influence the baby's brain to be male or female," Igor explained. "If a baby boy gets exposed to excess female hormones, he can end up with a female brain, and vice versa."

"And you think that's what happened to you?" asked Mercy.

"I _know_ that's what happened to me," Igor replied.

In her head, Mercy heard Cameron's voice. God doesn't make mistakes. A male person has a male body, and a female person has a female body. Period.

But what did Qasim have to do with any of this? He was an employee of COT, the developers of Kids On Fire. What was he, some kind of double agent? If so, how could she ever trust him?

She didn't have long to wonder, as soon they heard pounding on the door. "Open up! This is the police!"


	13. Set Up

Mercy joined Igor and Natasha in grabbing magazines and stuffing them underneath the sofa, but it was of no use. A moment later, the door was open and two burly police officers stood there.

"We heard that contraband literature was being harbored in this building," one of the policemen said. The other policeman reached under the sofa and began pulling out magazines. "Yep," he said, showing them to the first policeman.

"Do you have a search warrant?" asked Mercy.

"I don't need one," the second police officer told her. "We aren't in the pre-Rapture United States."

"But doesn't Millennial France have the same kinds of laws?"

"Nope. Come with us, please."

Where's Qasim? wondered Mercy. She hadn't seen him since entering the building.

The police led Igor, Natasha, and Mercy out to their squad car and opened the back door. The three young people meekly got in. A short while later, they arrived at the jail, where they were led inside, finger printed, and then taken to a holding cell.

"But I didn't even _do_ anything!" Mercy exclaimed.

"You deliberately harbored contraband literature," the first policeman replied.

"That's not true!" Mercy exclaimed. "I'd only just gotten there!"

"We have no proof of that." The second policeman opened the door to the cell. "In ya go."

"I've never been arrested before in my life!" Mercy began to cry. "What will my parents say?"

"Now you know how it feels," Igor told her.

"What do you mean?" asked Mercy.

"Kids On Fire," Igor replied. "How would you like to be locked up in a room all day long and not allowed out except to go to the bathroom? Being forced to memorize Bible verses and listen to recordings of speeches from former gays, lesbians, and transsexuals who've converted. It's not something you can switch on and off like a light bulb. It's a part of who you are, like your eye color."

"I still don't understand what happened to you," said Mercy.

"I always knew I was really a boy," Igor told her. "My parents named me Evgenia and dressed me in frilly dresses, but I'd always get them filthy playing in the mud. They bought me dolls when I wanted tractors and race cars. I hated it when I got breasts. I used to bind them down with ace wrap. I couldn't stand the way they made me look.

One day the ace wrap came undone and was hanging down where you could see it under my shirt. Chloe asked me what was wrong, and I just couldn't hold it in anymore. I broke down and told her my secret, then begged her not to tell anyone else. She said she was sorry but it would go against her conscience to keep such a revelation from Cameron. That's how I ended up in Kids On Fire."

"I'm sorry that happened." Mercy didn't know what else to say.

"That's all right. Hey, we really appreciate what you guys did for us. Say, if you don't mind my asking, how did you end up in Paris anyway?"

"Qasim invited me to come with him. He said he wanted to show me a good time."

Igor grimaced. "There's something funny about that guy. I don't trust him. Where'd he go, anyway? I saw you two walk in together."

Mercy shrugged. "Who knows? I was surprised he even knew you guys."

"Oh yeah, he comes around quite a bit. Likes to party with Ignace and Lothair and the rest of them."

Mercy gasped. "Qasim? I guess I didn't know him as well as I thought I did."

A short time later, she detected motion, then glanced in the direction from whence it came and saw the metal grate above one of the bunk beds was being moved. A moment later, Sergei's face appeared. He beckoned to her with his finger.

Quick as a flash, the three inmates jumped to their feet. Going feet first, Mercy snaked her body out the metal grate, and Igor and Natasha soon followed. When they were outside, they dashed to the getaway car, Sergei leading the way.

Mercy, Igor, and Natasha got into the back seat, and Sergei joined the driver, Elianto, in the front. Elianto stepped on the accelerator and the car zipped away.

"How'd you know how to find us?" Mercy asked when they were a safe distance from the jail.

"I knew Qasim was up to no good," Sergei told her. "I was worried about what might happen to you, so I called Elianto and we followed him. We watched the rally from a distance, and when the riot broke out, we saw Qasim lead you into that neighborhood. While the police were trying to control the riot, we saw a couple of them break away and knew you guys were about to be raided. There was nothing we could do but wait for an opportunity to break you out."

"We do appreciate it, very much," said Igor.

"We really do," Mercy and Natasha chorused.

"But what happened to Qasim?" asked Mercy.

"We saw him leave just before the police got there," Elianto told her. "Sure looks to me like you guys were set up."


	14. Found Out

"Why did I have to listen to that creep?" Mercy grumbled, already trying to think of some way to get back at Qasim.

"I'm just glad we got you out of there when we did," Sergei replied. "Imagine what would have happened if they'd called your parents."

Mercy rolled her eyes. "I don't even want to think about it!"

At last the car was pulling up in front of the Hassid house. "Thanks again, guys!" Mercy called as she got out of the car.

Annie and David were at the door waiting for her. "What's the meaning of this?" David demanded. "We trust you enough to let you go to a rally in Paris, then we get a call from the police saying you've been arrested, and now suddenly you're here. What's going on?"

"Sergei and Elianto bailed us out," Mercy told her parents. "Qasim set us up. We were marching in the rally and a riot broke out. He led me into this neighborhood where there were these kids in a house that had contraband magazines. The cops came and arrested us and took us to jail."

Annie embraced her daughter. "I'm just _so_ glad you're all right!"

David frowned. "What do you mean about Qasim setting you up?"

"I think he tipped the police off. It's just too big a coincidence that the cops showed up right after I got there. I'm never having anything to do with that jerk again!"

"Where are Zaki and Wendy?" asked Annie.

Mercy shrugged. "Still at the rally, I guess. It was supposed to last all weekend."

"Well, I'm glad you learned your lesson about Qasim Marid," David remarked.

At COT, Qasim, Zaki, and Wendy were celebrities. "We won over several dozen Other Light devotees to the Lord!" Wendy exclaimed. Like her father, she had pastoral aspirations. The face that she was female didn't matter, as women pastors were allowed in the Millennial Kingdom.

"Praise God!" all the others cheered, but it looked to Mercy as if Qasim was just mouthing the words.

"I was personally responsible for helping clean up one of Paris's trashiest neighborhoods," he bragged. Mercy noticed he was staring straight at Ekaterina, who stood holding hands with Kenny. "Drug and pornography busts, subversive literature round ups - thanks to me, Paris is a much cleaner city now!"

"Good for you!" Zaki clapped his friend on the shoulder.

Mercy saw how intently Qasim watched Kat for signs of approval, saw the disappointment in his eyes when she only continued to gaze at Kenny in adoration. Suddenly she couldn't stand it anymore.

"Liar!" she shouted at Qasim.

He gaped at her for a moment, then began to stammer. "It's true! You _know_ it is!"

Mercy began to advance toward him, and he backpedaled. "Why don't you tell everyone here how you know it's true, Qasim?"

Qasim turned beet red and stared at the ground.

"Supervisors, co-workers, students, friends - the reason this young man here can boast about 'cleaning up' Paris is that he's a phony. He deliberately set me up to be in a house where there was contraband literature and then called the cops on us, and he did it just to impress Ekaterina Risto."

Everyone looked from Qasim to Kat, who was hiding her face in the front of Kenny's shirt. Kenny's eyes shot daggers in Qasim's direction. Qasim continued to stare at the ground, not saying a word.

* * *

From that moment on, things began to go downhill at COT. First, false allegations of misbehavior at work were brought against Ekaterina. Then while on a trip to Paris, Kenny was framed and accused of joining The Other Light himself. Only his mother remained sympathetic to him.

When the truth eventually came out that Qasim was behind all the mischief, he was fired. Mercy was there listening in while pretending not to with a couple of her friends. Qasim at first denied everything, but when presented with incontrovertible evidence, he whined, pleaded, begged forgiveness, and in the end stormed and raged as he stalked away.

Cameron watched him leave, remembering mass shootings by former post office employees and the like in the pre-Rapture United States. "I really hated to have to let him go." He'd always thought of himself as a nice guy and wanted all his employees to think the same.

"I don't think I can ever forgive him for what he did to our son." Chloe's voice was ice cold. Although Glorified, she still retained some very human emotions.

Cameron saw the agony in the eyes of the woman who'd once been his wife. He put his arms around her and held her as if she was his kid sister who'd just been dumped by her boyfriend.

"It's all over now, Chlo'."

"Yeah, I know." For a fleeting moment, she thought of what such an encounter might have led to before. She knew she probably wouldn't get much rest during what now passed for night.


	15. The New COT Employee

"I can't believe you actually stood up to the guy!" Sergei laughed so hard root beer shot out his nose. He and Mercy were enjoying floats at the local Dairy Queen while Mercy related the most recent events at COT to her friend. Many popular secular establishments of the twentieth century were now making comebacks. Down the street from the Dairy Queen was a MacDonald's, complete with two separate kitchens for the convenience of the Jews who still kept kosher. Not that it really mattered, since no one ate meat anymore anyway.

"I just couldn't stand it anymore." Mercy handed Sergei a paper napkin. "There he stood all sanctimonious when he's as phony as a three dollar bill! Somebody had to put him in his place, and it might as well have been me." The two had been taught about pre-Rapture American currency in their respective history classes.

"So what happened then?" asked Sergei.

"After that he started acting extra nice, trying to kiss up to everybody, but it didn't last for long before Cameron and Chloe found out he was really a TOL mole and fired him. Wendy and Beth Ann and me were listening in when that happened. You should have heard him grovel!"

Sergei laughed again, taking more care this time, and Mercy laughed along with him. It was bright and sunny just like every day, but the umbrella over their outdoor table shielded them from the sun's direct rays.

"Well, I'd say good riddance," said Sergei.

"And I'd agree with you," Mercy replied. "Now he can slink back to the hole he crawled out of and slither back into it."

"They'll need a replacement for him, won't they?" asked Sergei.

"Do you have someone in mind?" asked Mercy.

"Me." Sergei chuckled. "But never mind. They'd never hire a non-Christian, anyway."

"I thought you were happy at the Outer Light."

"I am. I just thought they might could use some new blood with a different perspective on the universe, that perhaps it would help expand the minds of the children and young people." What he was too shy to tell her was that it would also mean the two of them would see much more of each other since they'd work together.

Mercy sighed. "They don't _want_ a different perspective, Sergei. They have the children all believing the universe was created in six literal days and is only a little over six thousand years old. Adam and Eve just visited a little while ago, and Adam told them how much fun he had naming all the animals. Cameron and Chloe don't want to ruin all that by having the children find out how long it takes for light to travel from distant stars to earth because they'd only get confused. Some of them have seen the pictures Cendrillon brought back, or they've googled 'stars' on the internet, and they'd question how the light could have already gotten here."

"That's exactly what I mean," Sergei replied. The two had finished their snacks and were walking home. "I could be there to explain it to them."

Mercy stared at the ground. "Didn't what happened to Cendrillon scare you, Sergei?"

"Of course it did. I'd never known anyone who died. I was too young to remember the Tribulation."

"I remember a little of it, just barely, but I don't remember anyone dying, either. I guess what I really meant was, to me it just seemed too much of a coincidence that she died right after her space adventure."

"Well, I'm still a few years away away from one hundred, so I should have a little time to influence the world's youth."

"Some people die younger than one hundred now, you know. They get zapped by lightning or just drop dead like the Ananias and Sapphira Cameron keeps reminding everyone of."

A little smile began to tug at the corners of Sergei's lips. "So do you think I'd be struck dead for teaching children the size of the universe, the speed of light, and how far apart stars and other heavenly bodies are?"

Mercy stopped walking and turned to look into his eyes. "I don't know. All I know is that I - care about you a lot and can't stand the thought of anything happening to you."

Sergei took her hands and pressed his forehead to hers, and they just stood there like that for awhile.

* * *

The next time Mercy went to COT, she noticed that a young man of Middle Eastern descent stood beside Cameron. He bore a slight resemblance to Qasim, but Mercy thought he was much more handsome. As soon as everyone was there, Cameron spoke up.

"Students and fellow faculty members and other staff, this is our new employee, Sarsour. I know you'll all make him feel welcome."

Sarsour smiled. His teeth looked very white against his deeply tanned skin. Everyone greeted him politely.

Later, Mercy was eating lunch with Wendy and Beth Ann when she heard a deep voice beside her.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

Mercy turned to look into Sarsour's dark, sparkling eyes, and she felt her heart begin to beat faster.


	16. Hybrid

This is crazy! Mercy thought to herself. What about Sergei?

"Not at all!" She smiled and moved over to make room for Sarsour, feeling guilty as she did so.

"So how are you enjoying your first day with us?" Beth Ann asked Sarsour.

"I'm really enjoying it so far," he replied. "Working with children is certainly a challenge. I've never done it before."

"There's nothing more rewarding than leading a child to the Lord," Wendy told him.

"I can't wait to have that privilege," said Sarsour. "How many children have you led to the Lord?"

"Too many to count," Wendy replied. "I've been working at COT ever since I returned from heaven at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom."

"What was it like to live in heaven for seven years?" asked Mercy.

"Words can't describe it, it was so wonderful," Wendy replied.

"It must have been a real let down for you to have to come back to earth again then, wasn't it?" asked Mercy.

"Not at all!" Wendy exclaimed. ""The Father's will is never any kind of burden for me."

"I've often envied you," Beth Ann told her.

"No need to," Wendy assured her. "What I got a little taste of will be yours for all eternity at the end of time."

"Yeah, another nine hundred years." Beth Ann rolled her eyes.

"As a baby Christian, I'd be delighted to hear both your stories." Sarsour looked at Mercy. "And yours as well - is it Marcy? What was your conversion experience like?"

"It's Mercy, and I was only eight. I don't remember it that well," Mercy told him.

"It was the happiest day of my life!" exclaimed Beth Ann, and Sarsour's attention was instantly focused on her. Mercy wondered why Beth Ann often talked and acted more like a Glorified than a Natural and concluded that maybe it was because she and Wendy were such good friends. Sarsour was a Natural as well, so perhaps they'd hit it off together.

A Few Months Later

"One more push," the midwife encouraged. Nicolette pushed with all her might, and the newborn slid from her body.

"It's a boy!" the midwife announced as the infant began to wail.

Nicolette smiled. She'd done her duty for the cause of TOL's research into reproductive technology. She held out her arms, and the midwife placed her new son into them. She held him close as he hungrily searched for a nipple and then latched on.

A few minutes later, Ignace and Lothair entered the room. Nicolette looked up and smiled at them.

"He's beautiful," she told them.

Ignace swept his hand over the top of the infant's head, which was generously covered with black fuzz. "You did well," he agreed.

"What shall we name him?" asked Lothair.

 _"I_ was thinking of calling him Nicolas, the French variant of his grandfather's name," Nicolette snapped.

"What about his middle name?" asked Lothair.

"Joseph, for my father," Nicolette replied.

"Nicolas Joseph Carpathia." Ignace was still admiring the newborn. "The first Natural/Glorified hybrid."

"Although by no means the last," added Lothair.

* * *

"Everybody at COT was talking about it." Mercy lay in Sergei's arms on an old sofa in a corner of an abandoned storage room down the hall from The Outer Light's main lab. Behind stacks of broken monitors and boxes of outdated equipment and supplies, they were free to do whatever they wanted with a minimum risk of interruption.

"Nicolette gave birth to her and Matthew's son - a hybrid between a Natural and a Glorified. They think he'll be able to live past one hundred without having to accept Christ. Cameron instilled in us that it's our duty to try our best to win him over for the Kingdom as soon as he's old enough to make the decision."

"Well, that's no surprise." Sergei's hand caressed her back, and she stretched like a cat luxuriating in the sun. The first time she and Sergei had been together like this, she'd been consumed with guilt, afraid of being struck dead in her sleep, joining Cendrillon in hell. She's been genuinely surprised to wake up the following morning. Could it be such acts were not as damning as she'd always been led to believe they were?

"That's their mission, isn't it? To win over as many souls as possible." Sergei grew thoughtful. "You know, I wonder whether anyone ever tried to win Carpathia over to the other side before it was too late?"

"I asked Cameron about that once." Mercy was playing with Sergei's chest hair. "He told me that even if someone had tried, it wouldn't have worked, because he was destined to become the Antichrist."

"That doesn't seem quite fair, does it?" asked Sergei. "That everyone should have a chance at salvation except one man. Skeptic that I am, even I can see that."

"It makes perfect sense to me too." Mercy yawned, thinking of the awkwardness of coming home at the time she would, the silence, the disapproving glares. She suspected her parents knew what she was up to and also realized a confrontation wouldn't change anything. "If God created everyone, including Carpathia, how could He not love someone He created?"

"Makes me glad I'm a skeptic. I don't have to worry about things like that." Sergei buried his nose in her hair, relishing the floral aroma of her shampoo.


	17. Sergei's Decision

Several Years Later

"Please, Sergei, you _have_ to do it!" Mercy begged. "Tomorrow's your hundredth birthday, so if you don't do it today, you'll die and go to hell just like Cendrillon did!"

"I know that." Sergei frowned. "But it isn't just a matter of repeating the words, is it? Don't you have to actually believe all that stuff?"

"I'm not sure," Mercy admitted. "I was only eight, and I repeated the prayer because my parents were so insistent upon it. I don't think I was really old enough to understand the full significance of what I was doing."

"That you were admitting your guilt at having been born with a sinful nature and throwing yourself upon the mercy of the God Who created you that way?" asked Sergei.

"I was taught to believe that Adam and Eve were created perfect, but when they sinned, all their descendants inherited their sinful nature."

"But that doesn't even make sense," Sergei argued. "Acquired traits aren't inherited. If committing a sin changed your nature, that would have no effect on your children, as they'd be born with your original nature."

"I don't understand that part at all," Mercy admitted. "But I could never ask, because I know what the answer would be. You have to just accept and believe without understanding, but I remember one time Cendrillon told me the Jews didn't even believe in original sin. The garden of Eden story is part of the Torah, but they have a whole different interpretation of it."

Sergei raised an eyebrow. "How do they see it, then?"

"I don't remember exactly, but it doesn't have anything to do with inherited sin!"

"Don't worry," said Sergei. "I'll take care of it."

"So you're going to talk with Cameron about giving your life to Christ?" asked Mercy.

"I'll do _something,"_ Sergei replied.

Mercy watched him leave, wondering what his idea was. She decided to pay Judd and Vicki a visit to help take her mind off things.

Three-year-old Selah came running out to meet her as she approached the house, with her eighteen-month-old brother, Micah, toddling behind her. Judd and Vicki were sitting in a heavily shaded porch swing, holding hands.

"Hi!" Mercy said, picking the little girl up and kissing her cheek. "Hi. Micah," she said to the baby.

"How's it goin'?" Judd called to Mercy. He and Vicki scooted over so Mercy could sit beside them.

"Not too good," Mercy replied. "Tomorrow's Sergei's hundredth birthday."

"Oh," said Judd.

"I'm sorry," said Vicki. They were both aware of Sergei's spiritual state and Mercy's feelings for him.

"I told him what he had to do," Mercy told her. "He said he'd take care of it, whatever that means."

"It won't mean anything if his heart isn't in it," Vicki replied.

"I know." Mercy watched the children playing in the sun, returning frequently to their mother for a sip of a cold drink.

"I wonder about you sometimes, Mercy," Vicki continued. "Are you sure you're really a child of God?"

"Of course! Why do you ask?"

"You're sleeping with Sergei, aren't you?"

Mercy looked away without saying anything.

"You can't break God's rules and expect Him to bless your life," said Vicki.

I should have known I'd get a sermon if I came here, Mercy said to herself. "The kids are sure growing fast, aren't they?" she said, to change the subject.

"I mean!" Vicki laughed. "I keep having to buy new clothes for them every time I turn around!"

"Have you been to see Kenny and Kat recently?" asked Mercy.

Vicki nodded. "I ran into them yesterday. Jason just learned to walk, and Kat's already pregnant again. She told me they want a large family."

"How about you and Judd?"

"Oh, we'll be happy with five or six." Families consisting of 10-15 children were the norm among Millennium parents, as with their super-long lifespans came super-long fertility.

"Look, Mommy, I picked a flower for you!" Selah ran to her mother holding a yellow flower.

"Yeah, sweetie, that's real pretty," said Vicki. "I'll get a vase for it. Would you like some lemonade, Mercy?"

"Sure!"

Sipping lemonade and chatting with her friends, Mercy lost track of time until Vicki started cleaning vegetables. "Well, I'd better get going," she said.

"Sure you don't want to stay for dinner?" offered Vicki.

"No, thanks." Mercy headed for the Korolevs. Sergei was already home when she got there.

"Did you go see Cameron?" she asked.

"No, but I took care of it," he told her.

"How? What did you do?"

"I went to see the Russian Orthodox priest Father John Yanishev, the man who presided over the wedding of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra."

"And?"

"He told me the sinner's prayer wasn't even said before the 1700's, so if you had to say it to become a Christian, nobody could have been saved before then, and you know as well as I there are Glorifieds here from every century since Bible days, and before."

"So how did they all get to heaven, then?"

"Father John has already started me on the same discipleship process he used in life for new converts, and when I'm ready, he'll perform the ceremony to make me an Orthodox Christian."

"But isn't this kind of waiting till the last minute for that sort of thing?"

"Father John says God knows my heart."

"But that might not be such a good thing..."

Sergei just stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "He knows I intend to go through with the process of conversion and adhere to it faithfully afterwards, and even if it's just to save my life, it still counts. Lots of people get saved the evangelical way only to avoid going to hell."

"I guess you're right," Mercy conceded. "We'll know tomorrow at any rate, won't we?"


	18. Victory Dance

Mercy avoided saying goodbye to Sergei for as long as she could. Even way past the time she knew her parents expected her home, she lingered at the Korolevs.

"I'm just terrified to say goodbye to you," she finally admitted. "I'm afraid it'll be for the last time."

Sergei smiled. "Just have faith." He kissed her lips. "Everything will be all right."

David and Annie noticed the sober expression on their daughter's face when she returned home. "You look like you just lost your best friend," Annie remarked.

"Tomorrow's Sergei's hundredth birthday," Mercy told her.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," said Annie. "But you know he's had the same opportunity we all have."

"He went to a Russian Orthodox priest," Mercy told her mother. "He thinks that will save him."

Annie only sighed and shook her head.

Mercy spent a restless pseudo-night lying in bed in her black-paneled room, wondering whether she'd ever see the man she loved again. When she went to visit him the next day, would she find a scene of celebration or one of mourning?

As soon as the clock struck six the following morning, her feet swung over the side of the bed and hit the floor. She bounded into the kitchen, where she found her mother preparing figs and honey cakes while her father sat at the table drinking grape juice.

"Morning everyone," she said. "Gotta go. Bye."

"But aren't you even gonna eat breakfast?" asked Annie.

"I'm not hungry," her daughter told her as she headed for the door.

Once outside, she headed for the Korolev home with wings on her feet. She was scheduled to work at COT that morning, but she didn't care. Reaching Sergei's home, she knocked on the door and then waited breathlessly for a response. Several moments later, the door swung open and Mrs. Korolev stood there.

"Mercy! What in the world are you doing here so early?"

"Is Sergei all right?" she asked.

Mrs. Korolev frowned. "He's still in bed. The Outer Light gave him the day off. It's his birthday, you know. We were gonna have cake and ice cream later."

"That's why I came," Mercy replied. "It's his hundredth birthday."

"I know. We had a talk about it yesterday, and he told me he was ready."

"Did he tell you what he did?"

"Well, not specifically, but he told me he made it right. I assumed he'd meant he'd prayed and asked Jesus into his heart. At least, I _hope_ that's what he meant!" A look of panic crossed her face as she turned to go to her son's room.

"Sergei!" she screamed, pounding on the door. A moment later, her son appeared, rubbing his eyes. His hair was tousled from sleep.

"Mom? What is it?"

"Thank God you're all right!" Mrs. Korolev went limp with relief. Sergei caught her.

"Of _course_ I'm all right." He looked up and saw Mercy. "Mercy? What are you doing here?"

"You're all right!" She ran to embrace him.

"Oh yeah. My birthday." He laughed. "My birthday! I'm one hundred years old and still alive!"

After ensuring his mother was OK, he took Mercy's hands and did a victory dance with her.

* * *

"This is my fiancee, Mercy Hassid," Sergei told Father John. "She has agreed to join the church if you will perform our wedding."

"Are you prepared to surrender your life to Christ and to the teachings of the Orthodox church?" Father John asked Mercy.

"Absolutely!" she replied. "I still have a couple more years to go before I turn one hundred myself, but I might as well get an early start." She chuckled. "Although of course my Jewish grandparents would roll over in their graves if they knew!"

Father John raised his eyebrows. "They aren't here?"

"No. They were in a taxi in which the driver was raptured. It went out of control and crashed head-on with another car. They both died instantly."

"I'm sorry to hear that. What about your other grandparents?"

"They were Canadian atheists who died during the Wrath of the Lamb earthquake, along with my uncles on that side."

Father John looked at Sergei. "And what about your family?"

"A couple of generations aren't here because they were born and raised during the atheistic Soviet years. You've probably met some of my distant ancestors who lived during the tsarist years."

Father John nodded. "Such was the legacy of Lenin and Stalin. Such a shame. So many of our countrymen are in hell now because of them."

Sergei had a sudden thought. "Is Gorbachev here?"

Father John nodded again. "His grandfather baptized him in the Volga river, and he became a Christian."

"I only hope my parents will agree to come to the wedding, even though it won't be in their kind of church," said Mercy.


	19. Fright

"Of course we'll come," Annie told her daughter. "But Mercy, why a Russian Orthodox church? Why don't you just ask Bruce to do the ceremony, like he did for Kenny and Kat?"

"This is something that's important to Sergei," Mercy replied.

"But hon, you know all that pomp and ceremony isn't really necessary. It doesn't mean anything, anyway. We're saved by grace, not works."

"But some people _like_ the pomp and ceremony. It's just a different kind of church, Mom."

"Well, as long as the Spirit of the Lord is present, but honey, are you sure you really want to do this? You know your father and I have always felt Sergei's been a bad influence on you, and to me, this is just another example of it."

"He's a great guy, Mom, and when you really get to know him, you'll see that."

"Of course if he's lived to be over one hundred, that proves he's a true Christian, and deep down inside, that's all that matters, I suppose."

"Of course it is, Mom!"

David and Annie, along with some of Mercy's closest friends, did attend the wedding, although they were confused and bewildered by the rituals, as were Mercy's friends. Wendy hadn't come to the wedding, probably offended that her father hadn't been asked to perform the ceremony.

"So, where would you like to go for our honeymoon?" Sergei asked his new wife.

"Does it matter?" asked Mercy. "Everywhere looks pretty much the same now, doesn't it?"

In the end, they went to Hawaii, since Mercy had heard such glowing reports about it from some Glorifieds and older Naturals.

"It just doesn't seem the same without the volcanoes, does it?" asked Sergei, who'd longed to collect lava samples to take back to the Outer Light lab to study.

"At least the beach is still here," Mercy replied, sipping her nonalcoholic mai tai.

They returned home to set up house in a neighborhood near some of Sergei's friends from work. Elianto came over almost every night for drinks and to discuss various work projects. Often he and Sergei raced their toy rockets in the back yard as Mercy looked on in amusement.

Occasionally Ignace and Lothair joined in as, although their primary interest was in biology, they sometimes dabbled in astronomy as well. One day Ignace showed up with, of all people, Qasim.

"Lothair didn't feel like coming," Ignace explained. Qasim pretended not to notice as Mercy stalked back into the house. She and Sergei had their first real argument that 'night.'

"How could you allow that man onto my property!" she raged. "You know what he did to me!"

"It's my property too," Sergei countered. "And I got you out of jail only a little while after you were arrested that time, so no real harm was done."

"That's not the point! The point is, he betrayed me!"

Sergei gave a helpless shrug. "Ignace and Lothair still think he's cool to hang with, and I doubt I could ever change their minds."

"Well, don't expect me to stick around when he's here!"

Sergei only shrugged again.

Qasim came over several more times, and then one day Ignace arrived alone, pale and glassy eyed.

"Qasim's dead," he told Sergei. "I just stopped by his house to pick him up, and his mother met me at the door, crying. She said she'd been unable to wake him in the morning. She was shocked. She'd thought he was a Christian. He even fooled her."

* * *

Mercy didn't want to go to the funeral at first, but Wendy and Beth Ann talked her into it. "I know he left COT in bad standing, but we should go anyway, out of respect for his family," Wendy told her.

Abdullah spoke at the funeral, as he had at that of Maurice, friend of Sam Goldberg.

"Before you lies a man who grew up in the company of my own children, who was a close friend of my son Zaki, who in his innocence believed his friend to be a true Christian. After he was exposed as a mole for TOL and dismissed from his position at COT, Zaki prayed he'd see the light and turn his life around. He was devastated to learn his hopes had been all for naught."

With tears streaming down his face, Zaki spoke next. "Qasim was my best friend. We did everything together. Even after the truth came out about him, I went to see him, begged and pleaded with him to give his life to Christ. He refused, saying it was his own life and he'd live it as he pleased." He swallowed hard, and when he spoke again, his voice quivered. "Well, he got his wish."

* * *

One day a few weeks later, Mercy was turning a corner when she noticed a young man walking ahead of her. His back, and the back of his head, were a mass of wires and antennas. On his head was a helmet, and his gait seemed unnatural, stiff and regulated like that of a robot. Curious, she sped up until she was almost caught up to him. Just then, a vehicle roared toward them from the opposite direction.

"Watch out!" screamed Mercy. The man turned to look at her, and her heart almost stopped.

He was Qasim.


	20. Revenants

Mercy turned and ran home as fast as her legs could carry her, almost colliding with Sergei, who was tinkering with his telescope in the front yard.

"Whoa! What is it?" He laughed as he grasped her by the shoulders. "You act like you just saw a ghost!"

"Not a ghost...but...I think I just saw...a zombie." Mercy had to pause between words to gasp for air. "It was so _weird,_ Sergei. It had all these wires and things sticking out of it, and - it looked just like Qasim!"

"It's something the Other Light has been working on," Sergei told his wife. "A way to extend the lives of unbelievers past the age of one hundred. It's only in its earliest stages now, so what you saw _was_ pretty much just a zombie. All those wires and antennas are connected to a remote control. He can hear and understand simple commands, but he can't really think for himself anymore."

"But I thought he was dead! I mean, they had a funeral for him and everything!"

"They buried an empty casket, Mercy. Ignace and Lothair sneaked into the funeral home and took his body, then brought it back to their lab and reanimated him."

"But that's not possible! When you die, there's no second chances. You either go to heaven or hell. That's what I've always been told!"

"They reactivated the neural passages in his brain, but like I said, it's still in the rudimentary stages. They were able to bring part of his consciousness back from hell, but not all of it."

"You mean he's conscious on earth and in hell at the same time! But that's crazy!"

"They're giving him sedatives and analgesics to block the perceptions of fire and pain. Right now, all he's aware of is the instructions that are programmed into his life support system."

"But that's not really living, is it? Who'd want to spend eternity that way?"

"Qasim's kind of a guinea pig to them. When they refine their techniques, the unsaved can live eternally as well as the saved, and some day, they'll escape earth's fate and colonize other planets. That's what we at the Outer Light are working on now."

"But what's the point of that?"

Sergei sighed. "Mercy, can't you see? Right now, the only choices are to accept Christ or die and go to hell. This new technology would give the undecided another option. If for whatever reason they can't or don't want to accept Christianity but don't want to go to hell either, they can live forever as a reconstituted human, with body and soul intact."

Mercy grimaced. "It still sounds creepy to me."

"It's better than the alternative, isn't it?"

She had to admit it was.

As time went by, she began to see more and more of the robot-like individuals. They were everywhere: on the street, in stores, even in restaurants. They didn't seem to need nourishment but haunted dining rooms nonetheless, staring at diners, pacing back and forth, bumping into people from time to time. They never said a word and, as far as Mercy could tell, never harmed anyone, but she never got over feeling just a bit creepy every time she encountered one of them.

Instead of only two types of humans, the Millennial Kingdom now contained three: Glorifieds, Naturals, and Revenants. Mercy asked Cameron what the spiritual state of the Revenants was.

"Just like those who received the mark during the Tribulation, they are doomed," he told her. "At the Great White Throne judgement, they will stand before God to be judged and then cast into the Lake of Fire."

Mercy didn't mention what Sergei had told her about the colonization of other planets by such beings, as she knew he'd only turn the conversation around to the importance of urging all young people to accept Jesus while there was still time.

She was thrilled the day she found out she was expecting a little Korolev. David and Annie were thrilled as well.

"I know you'll enroll him or her at COT as soon as possible," Annie said to her daughter.

"I'm not sure I want my son or daughter growing up in that environment," Sergei told his wife as soon as they were alone. "You know the Russian Orthodox church has a perfectly adequate nursery school."

"I know, but you know how important this is to my parents."

Sergei only sighed and shook his head.

One day when Mercy was about six months pregnant, she was in the supermarket where a bottle of cooking oil had fallen from a shelf and burst open. She didn't notice until it was too late and she felt her foot slide out from under her. Right before she hit the ground, she felt a strong arm grab her own and steady her. When she turned to thank her benefactor, she found herself looking into the blank eyes of a Revenant.


	21. One Day In The Park

"Uh...thanks." Taken aback, Mercy steadied herself and tried to calm down. Inside her womb, her child began to wriggle and squirm as a result of the adrenaline boost that had just crossed the placenta. A clerk, gushing apologies, arrived and began to clean up the mess.

The Revenant turned and walked away without responding to Mercy. She watched him go, feeling confused and sad. He'd just saved her and her child from possible serious injury. How could he be condemned to the Lake of Fire?

The rest of the day was uneventful, but Sergei looked concerned as she sat bowls of steamed vegetables on the table that evening.

"You've hardly said ten words all day today," he remarked. "What's wrong?"

"I was in the supermarket this morning and slipped and almost fell. One of those... _people_...grabbed my arm and saved me from falling. I thought you said they can't think for themselves anymore."

"Reflex actions would remain," Sergei replied. "When he saw you fall, it must have activated a permanently stored memory in his neurons. That part of him realized a fall could cause serious injury and automatically resulted in his action." He smiled. "I myself am awfully glad he was there to save you." He held out his arms, and Mercy went into them. They cuddled for a few seconds, relishing in the closeness.

* * *

Mercy went into labor several months later. She called Sergei at the lab, then lay down in bed and waited. About half an hour later, Sergei arrived with the midwife.

"Are you all right, hon?" he asked his wife.

Mercy nodded. "It doesn't hurt. It's - interesting. I've never felt anything quite like it before."

A couple of hours later, her water broke, and around midnight, the midwife told her it was time for the baby to be born. She gave several mighty pushes, then felt her child leave her body. A moment later, she heard the newborn's lusty wail. She and Sergei grinned and clasped each other's hands.

"You have a beautiful new daughter," the midwife told them.

Mercy reached for the baby, and the midwife placed her into her mother's arms. She had dark hair and eyes like her parents and soft, delicate skin. She made little mewing noises until she found a nipple, then latched on and began to nurse.

"Oh, Sergei, she's perfect!" Mercy breathed.

He nodded. Not particularly gifted at expressing emotion, he nonetheless felt awe and wonder at the miracle he'd just witnessed.

* * *

Several years passed. The number of Revenants grew exponentially. Some unbelievers began to exploit them, forcing them to perform menial labor around the clock with no compensation until they collapsed with exhaustion. Christians generally viewed them with a mixture of pity and revulsion, tending to avoid them as much as possible. As an illustration to youngsters of the consequences of refusing to accept Christ they were even more effective than the threat of hell fire, and for that the Christians came to see them as very useful.

One day several groups of children were enjoying picnics in adjacent areas of the park. In one group, Ekaterina and Kenny were helping the kids make shadow boxes of the disciples in a boat and Jesus walking on the water toward them using old shoe boxes and finger paint. In the second group, former Grand Duchess Maria Romanova was teaching her young charges how to make the sign of the cross. The tragic young woman who'd wanted to have twenty children someday had been, like Chloe Williams, compensated with her own brood.

The third 'group' consisted of one child, six-year-old Nicolas Carpathia. The successors of Ignace and Lothair, younger Jospin cousins, were teaching him the tenets of Luciferianism. As Antoine and Rene got into a heated argument over some minor issue, Nicolas wandered away, intrigued by what the first group of children was doing.

Seven-year-old Selah Thompson watched him approach, wondering who he was.

"Hello!" she called. Nicolas just stared. "My name's Selah. What's yours?" she asked.

"Nicky."

Selah smiled and held out her hand. "We're learning about Jesus. Want to join us?"

Nicolas took her hand and allowed her to lead him to the COT group.

From the second group, three-year-old Marika Korolev watched the other two children walk away and began to follow them.

"Where are you going, Marika? Come back!" Maria called to her, but she didn't hear.


	22. Olympics

"Look what I found!" Selah said to Sarsour and Beth Ann, who were standing with their arms around each other. "Another little boy!"

"That's wonderful!" Beth Ann fetched more supplies and found an empty spot at the table for Nicolas. "I'm so glad you could join us! What's your name?"

"Nicky."

"Hi, Nicky! Do you know the story of Jesus walking on the water?"

Nicolas shook his head. Just then, Marika appeared. "Well, hello there!" said Beth Ann. Marika just stared, slipping one finger into her mouth. "This is the bigger kids, sweetie. I'll take you to your class."

She took Marika's hand and was about to lead her away when Antoine and Rene appeared.

"Just what the hell is going on?" Antoine demanded.

"We're teaching the children about Jesus walking on the water," Sarsour explained with a smile.

"Come along, right away!" Rene snatched the child's hand and began to lead him away.

"But I wanna stay and make pictures!" Nicolas protested.

"We're going to see your mother," Rene told him.

"Yay!" Nicolas beamed, the shadow boxes forgotten right away. He hadn't seen Nicolette for some time and missed her.

The three left the park and moved on to a factory, where rows of expressionless Revenants worked an assembly line.

"Nicolette!" called Rene, and one of the women turned to look at him. "Look who's here!"

"Mommy!" Nicolas ran to meet her, then stepped back, puzzled. "What's wrong?"

"This is your son, Nicolette," said Antoine. "Don't you remember him?"

"My son." Nicolette's voice held no emotion as she knelt to the child's level to give him a limp hug.

* * *

One day Zoe Williams was walking home from school when her cousin Calista caught up with her. Calista was the daughter of her mother's first cousin, Athena.

"It's almost time for the Olympics," said Calista. "Why don't you join us this time?"

"I'll have to ask my parents," Zoe told her.

"My Dad says the Olympics were a really big deal back before the Rapture," Calista continued. "Every four years, all the different countries would get together and compete for medals."

"It sounds really exciting," Zoe replied. "I don't know why my grandparents never talk about it."

"You don't know what you've been missing!" said Calista.

At dinner that evening, Zoe told her parents about Calista's invitation.

"Yes, the Olympics were an important part of society before the Rapture," Kat told her oldest daughter as she nursed the baby, Christos. "But the Olympics now are very different, honey. In addition to the games, there are also ritual sacrifices to the pagan god, Zeus." She looked at Kenny, who was listening in with intense interest. "As Christians, we are forbidden from partaking in such ceremonies."

"So I can't go."

"As your father and head of this household, I must forbid it," said Kenny.

I knew it, Zoe thought to herself. They never let me have any fun. She looked at her older brother Jason, who gave her a sympathetic glance.

The morning the Olympic games started, Zoe, Jason, and some of their younger siblings attended a Kids' Crusade at COT. They were singing the Father Abraham song and acting it out when a couple of Olympic participants raced past.

"That looks like fun," Jason remarked.

"Dad forbid it, remember?" Zoe replied.

"What would one little race hurt?" asked Jason. He began to walk in the direction of where the Olympics were being held and, out of curiosity, Zoe followed.

She arrived to find a group of young people standing around an altar, watching as an older teenage boy lifted an object over his head and pierced it with a knife. A brown substance fell into a bowl, which the boy raised over his head.

"Oh mighty Zeus, please accept this offering of love and devotion from us mere mortals," he intoned. Then he set the bowl on the altar, and the group dispersed.

"Zoe! I'm so glad you could make it!"

Zoe turned to see Calista smiling at her. "What was that thing he stabbed?" she asked.

"A loaf of bread with two small cones inserted on one end to represent horns," Calista told her. "It was hollowed out and filled with barley to represent blood. The ancient Greeks used to sacrifice real bulls, but we obviously wouldn't want to do that, so we made a fake bull instead."

"But the Jews sacrifice real bulls at the Temple in Jerusalem," Zoe pointed out.

"At first there was talk of using real bulls, but in the end, it was decided not to," Calista replied. "We feel the reasons for the animal sacrifices of long ago no longer apply to the worship rituals of today."

As Zoe returned home with her brother later, she contemplated the differences between the religion in which she'd been raised and that practiced by her cousins.


	23. Apples And Oranges

Selah saw Nicolas crying and was alarmed.

"What's wrong?" she asked the little boy.

"My Mommy doesn't love me anymore!" Nicolas sobbed.

"Why, of course she does!" Selah replied.

Nicolas shook his head. "No, she doesn't! Rene and Antoine took me to see her yesterday, and she wouldn't even smile at me!"

Selah reached for her friend's hand. "Let's go talk to Mr. Cameron. Maybe he can tell you why."

The children found Cameron playing with one of his many grandchildren in the park behind the main COT building. He looked up as they approached.

"Nicky thinks his Mommy doesn't love him anymore," Selah explained.

"Why is that?" asked Cameron.

Nicolas repeated his story. Cameron looked thoughtful.

"Did you notice anything strange or different about her?" he asked.

"Well, there were some wires and things sticking out."

Cameron heaved a deep sigh and motioned for the children to sit down on a bench. "I'm sorry, but that wasn't really your Mommy," he told Nicolas. "I know she looked like your Mommy, but the part that was really her, her soul, is gone. TOL has found a way to bring back the bodies of unbelievers who have died, but they can't bring their souls back from Hell."

"What's Hell?"

"A place of judgement where the lost are confined until Judgement Day."

Nicolas looked stricken. "That doesn't sound good!"

"It's not good at all," Cameron agreed. "It's the worst thing that can happen to a person, but listen, Nicky, you don't have to go there too. Just ask Jesus into your heart and you'll live forever."

Nicolas scowled. "But I want to be with my Mommy!"

Cameron frowned and shook his head. "No, you don't. She's in a place of great suffering. It's too late for her, but it isn't too late for you. It's really easy. Just repeat after me. Dear Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner..."

"Nooo..." Nicolas's anguished scream echoed back to him as the little boy ran away as fast as he could with Selah right behind him.

Chloe, who'd overheard the entire interaction, walked up to her husband-turned-roommate and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Poor little boy!"

"It can't be sugar-coated, Chlo," Cameron replied. "Even though he's the grandchild of the Antichrist, we're still commanded to share the gospel with him, and that includes warning him of the consequences of making the wrong choice."

"But to think of what happened to his own mother, I can sure understand why he would have reacted that way." She remembered the 'Children of the Goats' incident, which still brought much pain to her soul.

"Selah has befriended him," Cameron replied. "Hopefully she'll be able to convince him to come back."

* * *

Neither Jason nor Zoe ever mentioned their participation in the pagan ritual to their parents, of course, but it made an impression on them which they would never forget, and in the months and years to come, they searched for similar opportunities to sneak away and join their Greek cousins.

One day Kenny and Kat were strolling past the funeral home with the cemetery behind it. Dotting the landscape were several hundred graves, and what Kenny and Kat realized but didn't want to admit was that a good many of them contained empty caskets, the former occupants of which now roamed the streets as revenants.

Kat saw that a graveside service was currently in progress and placed a hand on her husband's arm. The two of them approached the grave, and as they drew closer, they noticed Jason and Zoe among the mourners. Startled, they joined the group and listened to the rest of the eulogy. They soon realized that the deceased was Kat's cousin, Athena, whose daughter Calista stood beside Zoe, crying.

None of the family said a word until they'd returned home. As the younger Williams children were still at COT, it was just the four of them.

"So Athena's gone now, too." Kat gave a sad sigh. "We prayed for her for years, but she just wouldn't give up her pagan beliefs and turn to Jesus."

"You didn't even know she'd died until you saw us at her grave, did you?" asked Jason.

"Don't use that tone of voice with your mother, young man." Kenny had heard the accusatory inflection in the question.

"I'm going to Calista's later, Mom," said Zoe. "She's really torn up right now."

"I never realized you and Calista were that close," Kat remarked. "Have you been joining her in her pagan rituals after your father and I expressly forbid it?"

* * *

Matthew and Hattie were in the supermarket, selecting apples and oranges. Although the Glorified didn't have to eat, they still enjoyed their favorite foods.

Mother and son placed their selections into a shopping cart and headed for one of the lanes. When their turn came, Hattie placed the produce onto the conveyor belt. Her eyes met those of Marika Korolev, who smiled as she placed the oranges on the scale. Marika had taken the supermarket job to help fund the latest project of the student branch of the Outer Light, as it was rather expensive, and Nicolas had taken a position as a bag boy to keep her company. He enjoyed the job, although he felt awkward every time Selah came through his lane. It wasn't that he liked Marika better than Selah, or vice versa. He wasn't sure which girl he liked better, but he didn't want either girl to know that.

"Here you go." He smiled as he handed the bag of fruit to Matthew.

They'd left the supermarket and were on the way home before Matthew spoke. "That young man back there - it's funny, I somehow feel I should know him."


	24. Skylar

"Your father and I have talked it over and decided what your punishment will be," Kat told Jason and Zoe. She and Kenny stood facing their son and daughter, who shuffled their feet, unable to meet their parents' eyes. "You are to come straight home after COT every day. There will be no television, no telephone, no computers, and no socializing on the weekends. You're to attend church with us every time the doors are open, no ifs, ands, or buts."

"Mom!" Jason protested. "I'm eighty-five years old, and you're treating me like a kid!"

"When you act like a kid, you'll be treated like one," Kenny retorted. "You and your sister have broken mine and your mother's hearts. We've done our best to raise you the right way. I simply can't believe you'd let yourself be led astray by false doctrine."

"Dad, they're our cousins!" said Zoe. "How do we know we're right and they're wrong?"

Kat sighed and shook her head. "You've heard all the guest speakers at COT, all the stories of the miracles. If that wasn't enough to convince you of the truth, I don't know what is."

* * *

"I just can't love a God who would send my mother to hell!" said Nicolas.

"God didn't send her to hell," Selah replied. "She sent herself there, by refusing God's gift of eternal life."

The two sat side by side in swings at the park, pushing their feet back and forth in the dirt.

"That doesn't even make sense!" Nicolas objected.

"It makes perfect sense," Selah argued. "She had one hundred years in which to give her heart to Jesus. That's about twenty or twenty-five years longer than most people had before the Rapture."

"And just because she didn't give her heart to Jesus, God sent her to hell. Is that fair?"

"We all deserve to go to hell, Nicky, but God provided a way out through the death of His innocent Son on the cross."

"But that's ridiculous! Mom never did anything really bad, so why did she deserve to go to hell?"

Selah shook her head. "Because Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden, all their descendants inherited their sin nature, and if they don't accept God's offer of salvation, they will die and go to hell."

"You can't inherit sin," said Nicolas. "You can inherit hair and eye color and even personality traits, but not sin. Listen, Selah. If your father killed someone, would that make you a murderer, too?"

"No, of course not!"

"Well, isn't it the same thing, then? Adam and Eve eat the wrong fruit, and that automatically makes their descendants just as guilty as they are?"

"It's different. I can't explain how, but it is."

* * *

"My priest says everyone inherited the sin nature, but not the guilt," said Marika. Nicolas's head lay in her lap, and she was stroking his hair. "It's because of the inherited sin nature that people used to die in their seventies or eighties, but it doesn't send you to hell. You aren't responsible for anyone's sins but your own."

Nicolas grinned. "I like that a whole lot better!"

"So do I," Marika agreed.

* * *

It was Mac McCullum's thousandth birthday party, and all his friends from his Tribulation and Millennium years showed up to help him celebrate it. It was a huge gathering, and not everyone there knew Mac personally, of course, but they each had some connection to the original Tribulation Force. Judd, Vicki, Lionel, Kenny, Kat, David, Annie, Beth Ann and her parents, and Sarsour were there in wheelchairs, and Selah was also there, leaning heavily on a cane, while Cameron, Chloe, Ryan, Nada, Chaya, Hattie, Matthew, Raymie, Bahira, Zaki, Wendy and her parents and brothers flitted about appearing to be in the full bloom of youth. Among the congregants were many who also appeared youthful, but beneath their clothing were various wires and gears, without which they couldn't function.

One such individual was a girl named Skylar, who'd developed an intense interest in genealogy at a young age and eventually found out Kenny and Kat were her 10th great grandparents. As most of her ancestors were either still alive or had been reanimated, the task had been much easier for her than it would have been in pre-Rapture days, when she would have had to spend many hours roaming around inside cemeteries and poring over ancient records in libraries and court houses. Although she had no interest in celebrating the birthday of a man who was more than eight hundred years her senior, she couldn't resist the opportunity to meet her distant ancestors.

Upon meeting Kenny and Kat for the first time, she saw how thin, weak, and feeble they appeared. Her thought processes registered a vague awe tinged with pity as she approached and introduced herself.

"It's lovely to meet you, dear," Kat said as she shook Skylar's hand. "You're such a beautiful young girl. I know your parents are so proud of you."

"Yes, they are."

"And a strong woman of God as well, I'm sure. Just imagine, soon all this trouble with the Other Light will be all over with, and we believers can all live together with our Lord and Master in peace and harmony forever!"

But Skylar was hardly listening. She was thinking about how she'd tell her friend Quinn about meeting her 10th great grandparents later.


	25. Passing Over

Mary: You have to love God.

Sharon: I love you, Mary.

Mary: That isn't enough.

Sharon: Baby, it's all I have. If life is a gift, if it really is a gift, and there really is a heaven...

Mary: There really is a heaven.

Sharon: Then why should I thank Him for the gift of so much suffering, Mary, so much pain on the earth that He created. Let me ask Him why.

Mary: Tell God you love Him.

Sharon: I can't.

Mary: If you don't tell God that you love Him, you can't go to heaven. Tell God that you love Him. Mommy!

Sharon: No.

(From the 1991 movie 'The Rapture' starring Mimi Rogers as Sharon.)

* * *

"Come on, Skylar! You can do it!" Wendy grasped Skylar by both arms, her eyes pleading. Zaki stood just behind her, looking on in concern. For more than nine hundred years, Zaki and Wendy had always been together, like two peas in a pod. All their Natural friends through the ages had speculated on what their relationship might have been had they been Natural rather than Glorified. Most surmised they would have fallen in love and married years ago.

Now on the eve of Skylar's hundredth birthday, they pleaded with their friend to give her life to Jesus.

Skylar just shook her head. "I can't!"

"Of course you can." Zaki's deeper voice spoke. "It's really simple. All you have to do is admit you're a sinner, believe Jesus died for you, and confess Him as savior. It's as easy as ABC!"

"But it isn't." Skylar felt tears forming in her eyes. "You say it's easy, but it really isn't! You have to not only accept that there are millions of good, decent Hindus, Buddhists, pagans, and atheists burning in hell right now because they didn't believe in Jesus, while a mass murderer can repent the night before his execution and make it into heaven, but you have to be glad it's that way!"

"Skylar, nobody is glad they're in hell," Wendy argued. "But it was their choice to make, and they made it. You can't blame God."

"But for even the worst person in the world, there was a limit to how much sin they committed," Skylar argued. "So why does hell have to go on forever?"

"God's ways are not our ways," said Zaki.

"Please, Skylar, this is your last chance!" Wendy begged. "If you don't do it tonight, you won't wake up tomorrow!"

Skylar just shook her head. She was afraid, certainly, yet at the same time, she realized an insincere commitment made solely out of fear wouldn't count.

She stayed awake as long as she could that night, eating spoonfuls of coffee right from the jar and washing them down with energy drinks. Her system became so overloaded with caffeine she began to shake, and her nerves felt like they were on edge.

 _I'm not going down without a fight,_ she told herself.

It must have been around midnight when she felt the first flame shoot through her body, and all of a sudden, she was on fire. She realized she was no longer in her room; rather, she'd passed into a place of complete darkness. She felt as if she were suffocating while every nerve in her body screamed in agony.

Then suddenly, it was over. There was no darkness, no heat, no pain. Just...emptiness.

She opened her eyes to find herself lying on a hard table beneath a bright light. A quick glance around told her she was in an examination room. Something inside her, a vague memory from long ago, told her she should be afraid, but strangely, all she felt was a mild curiosity.

"Welcome back." One of the two men dressed as doctors said. They stood at the foot of the table she lay on, looking important in their white coats with stethoscopes around their necks. They looked youngish, as did ninety percent of all doctors.

"Where am I?" asked Skylar. "What happened?"

"You passed over." The man who spoke was tall, with dark hair and eyebrows and a goatee. "We just brought you back."

The memory of Zaki's and Wendy's faces swam in front of her. It seemed an eternity since she'd last seen them, but what had happened in the interim?

"Why did you bring me back?" she asked.

"We need you," the second doctor said. "We have work for you to do."

"What kind of work?"

"Follow us."


	26. The End, And A New Beginning

"This is Pyotr Zakarov," the taller man told Skylar. "You'll be working for him in his lab, manufacturing weapons for the upcoming war."

"What war?" asked Skylar.

"The war between Yahweh and TOL," Dr. Zakarov explained. "I believe we now have the capacity to destroy our enemy when he comes to mete out judgement upon us."

"You mean to kill God?"

"That is correct."

Skylar thought of Zaki and Wendy, of her other Christian friends, of her family members who'd begged her to become a believer before it was too late. They'd all told her the same thing - nobody and nothing can ever defeat God. His power is absolute.

Was it possible they could have been wrong?

Skylar soon settled into her new job. It was boring and didn't require much thinking, which was fine with her. Not that there was anything wrong with her intelligence; it seemed to have been unaffected by her transformation. Her emotions were a whole different story. It was almost as if they weren't even there anymore. In place of love, hope, fear, anger, and even sadness, there was merely a mild curiosity.

Not that Skylar really pondered such things anymore. The only thing on her mind now was the task at hand and the most efficient way to get it done, so she threw herself into her duty of manufacturing weapons, only vaguely conscious of what they were to be used for.

One Saturday, she was out for a stroll when she came upon Wendy and Zaki walking in the opposite direction. Wendy gasped and paled, clutching tightly to Zaki's hand. Zaki frowned.

Skylar waved to them. "Hi!"

"So you're one of _them_ now." Wendy gave a sad sigh. "I was hoping so much you'd come to your senses before it was too late!"

"What do you mean about it being too late?"

"Once you've died, even if you're reanimated right away, your chance to receive salvation is ended forever," Wendy explained. "All you have to look forward to now is the Judgement, and then the Lake of Fire."

Wendy and Zaki continued on their way, leaving Skylar as deeply in thought as her condition allowed. If she were already doomed anyway, then what did she have to lose by joining the resistance against Yahweh? The worst that could happen was they'd lose, and she'd end up in the Lake of Fire anyway.

Not too long after that, she met Quinn in the break room at work.

* * *

"I'm a trained assassin," Quinn told her. "My job is to eliminate competition for new converts."

"You mean missionaries?" asked Skylar.

"That's right. They're winning lots of new converts from the young people coming of age, and TOL hates that."

"But isn't that awfully dangerous?"

Quinn shrugged. "It doesn't really matter to me anymore. Whatever happens will happen."

Skylar concluded she was probably right.

* * *

The Last Day Of The Millennium

From the space ship, Skylar watched as Satan came forth from among the masses and marched toward the temple. She saw Jesus confront him, after which the entire TOL army was instantly vaporized. She heard Jesus give a speech, saw the evil one drop his sword and fall to his knees. She watched as King David emerged from the temple, quoted a passage from the Bible, and then retreated.

Jesus opened a seam in the cosmos, revealing Nicolae and Leon Fortunato on their knees, writhing and screaming 'Jesus is Lord!" over and over again. Satan was thrown in with them, and then the seam was closed.

As the Natural believers were transformed and raised together with the Glorifieds, a city made of pure gold, its beauty beyond description, descended. Skylar gaped in disbelief as millions of bodies from time immemorial began to materialize and amass in the sky. Before them descended Jesus, who sat on a great white throne. Instantly, the earth was incinerated.

"Quinn's down there." Skylar clasped the hand of her friend, Salvador. "I should be, too."

Salvador nodded. "We all should be."

Skylar's eyes scanned the sea of faces for that of her friend, but couldn't find it among the billions. Gone was the clothing representative of their cultural backgrounds and periods in history, to be replaced by sackcloth. Whatever remnant of humanity remained in her wished there was a way out for her friend, a chance to escape her certain awful doom.

She watched as each unbeliever was confronted with his or her sins and then condemned. She saw a host of angels simultaneously tossing each lost soul into the Lake of Fire, the underlings having been charged with the dirty work for the final time.

Jesus created a new earth for His followers to dwell upon, but Skylar and her friends would never set foot on it. Their destination was another planet in another solar system, that orbiting Alpha Centauri. There they would begin new lives beyond recorded history, free to live as they wished with only their own consciences as master.

 _Thanks to everyone who read and/or reviewed this story!_


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